


One too many

by glitteringeva



Category: RWBY
Genre: College AU, F/F, F/M, I don't, NO SMUT I PROMISE, a bit of slow burn with white rose, all the fluff in later chapters, background renora and arkos, be responsible with your drinking please, casual affair turning into more, lots of drinking but who cares, very background arkos and renoar, weiss the oblivious lesbian, yang & nora brotp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 47,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteringeva/pseuds/glitteringeva
Summary: Forgetting a One Night Stand is not that easy when the guy you've slept with is the best friend of your best friend's girlfriend. People get drunk. Poor life choices are made.Meanwhile Weiss is totally convinced she's straight. Girl, I've got some news for you... Not going to be a huge coming out story, but some cute fluffy White Rose.Also Mercury is a chemistry major which is quite ironic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda making this up as I go along. Future chapters won't be as fragmented as this one. Also I really don't mean to offend or upset anyone by how I write characters with disabilities here. I really just wanted to keep what the canon threw at those two and I'm doing it all with best intentions.

He still cursed the moment he had first met her.

Why her and not any other woman? Not someone he still had to be around, someone who was now sitting across the table, looking at him from time to time while Emerald opened her birthday presents as if she tried to make this as complicated as possible for him.  

But of course Yang Xiao Long was not a woman who would make anything easy for him.

“Oh, Weiss, I love it.” Emerald was beaming, turning the glittering bracelet in her hands. “Thank you so much!”

He kept himself from rolling his eyes. Yeah, that was why he was doing this. Emerald. Because having friends made her happier than he ever could.

So he kept quiet, drank his coke and ignored Blondie, hoping she might stop looking at him and just disappear from his life at all.

Emerald had told him to bond with her new friends, not to make things overly complicated.

 

_She was sitting on the doorsteps of their dormitory. He might have seen her before, or maybe not, but he couldn’t remember. Her hair falling down on her shoulders, her shirt showing too much of her shoulders to look away. She was beautiful and he was drunk enough to hesitate for a moment, long enough for her to say something._

_Then he noticed her right arm, metal painted black and yellow._

_It should have scared him away, but this night he just thought ‘oh well, why not?’._

“Merc?”

He looked up. Emerald was now standing right next to him, raising her eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“You look off.” She sat down on his lap. The others were either still sitting around the small table or on the beds. She was whispering. A dorm room was not the best place for a party after all, it still felt crowded. “You alright?”

“Just tired.” He tried to smile at her. He would have preferred his own dorm room and no one around except maybe Fox and Emerald. Rather Fox _or_ Emerald. “Are you having fun?”

She nodded, smiling. “But I’d have more fun if you wouldn’t be such a grump.”

“This is my fun face.” He tried not to look at Yang while she got up and sat down on one of the beds with Blake. Wasn’t easy with that dress. “You mind if I don’t stick around for too long?”

“No, of course not”, she said and played with her new bracelet. Of course she did mind. Of course he would stay.

“I’ll give you my present later”, he said. “It’s still under my bed, forgot it because I was running late already.” Rather deliberately forgot it because he didn’t want everyone to watch while she opened it. “What did Blake get you?”

“A painting and a coupon.” She smirked.

“Don’t say more.”

 

* * *

 

The third glass of wine had probably been a mistake. Or the fourth. Yang rested her head on Blake’s shoulder. “Can I be your maid of honour?”

“What? Yang, we’ve been dating for three months now, we’re not getting married anytime soon.”

“But if?” She wrapped her left arm around Blake’s waist. “Can I be your maid of honour then?”

“Yeah, sure.” She sighed. “You’re drunk.”

“Tipsy. Not gonna dance on the table without my top. Yet.”

“I’d stop you.”

“But now go kiss your girlfriend.” Yang sat up and gave her a pat on the back. “It’s her birthday.”

Emerald was sitting on Mercury’s lap, talking to him until Blake sat down next to them and kissed her cheek.

He was still pretending she didn’t exist. It hurt her more than she wanted to admit.

 

_“I forgot my keys”, she said. “Can you at least let me into the building?”_

_“Are you going to sleep in the hallway then?” He smirked. A handsome smirk, it did suit him. At least he opened the door for her._

_“Probably. My roommate is not at home.”_

_“I can open the door for you.”_

_“Are you the housekeeper or do you mean the illegal way?”_

_“I don’t consider it illegal when those doors are that damn easy to unlock. Which floor?”_

_“Second. Also my name is Yang.”_

_He raised his eyebrows as they walked up the stairs. “Pretty name.”_

_“And yours?”_

_“Mercury.”_

_He unlocked her door as easily as he had claimed he could, using her old Starbucks bonus card. She didn’t even care to hide she was impressed. “You have no idea how much you are saving my life”, she said._

_“My yearly good deed.” He hesitated a bit too long before he turned around to leave._

_“Want a coffee?”_

_He stopped. Turned around and looked at her. He raised his eyebrows. Handsome eyebrows. She swore she could hear her heart beating faster. What was she even doing here? He smirked. “Coffee?”_

_“The least I can do.” It was probably just the glass of wine she had had with Blake. Probably just her sitting in the cold for half an hour. Probably just the lack of sleep._

_He shrugged. “Why not?”_

_When he closed the door behind him she realised what she was just about to do. She knew she would not pull through with this if she didn’t act right now. This was new to her. Not knowing him at all. But she loved the thrill of new things._

_She almost felt shy when she grabbed his collar and pulled him close. His smirk had vanished, but his expression was warm. He closed the gap between them._

“I don’t know why he puts so much pressure on himself”, Pyrrha said, having another sip of wine. “Only because his parents are lawyers doesn’t mean he has to become one as well. I try to encourage him, but I’d rather see him do something that’s actually his kind of thing.”

“I’m the last person to ask for advice, I’m still not happy with my major.” Yang leaned against the wall, sipping on the glass of water Blake had brought her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to-“

“No, it’s okay. I should be sorry for not being able to help you.”

“It already helps to talk about it once.” Pyrrha looked at her, then followed Yang’s glare. “Is there any reason you’re staring at Emerald’s friend?”

“Hm?” Yang looked up.

“You’re staring at him.”

“No, I’m not.” She looked at Pyrrha, quickly downing the glass of water. “I don’t even really know him. Talked to him maybe once or twice.” Once, exactly once. And when she had met him again he had decided to pretend she didn’t exist.

“Do you want another glass of water?”

“I’m not that drunk.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to-“

“No, I’m sorry.” Yang sighed and tried to look apologetic. Tried. “I’m just tipsy and stressed.”

Pyrrha gave her a warm look. “I’ll get you another glass of water.”

 

_The kiss was warm. Soft. Almost shy. For a moment she wasn’t even sure if this would lead to anything. If one of them would make the first to go further or if they would leave it there. Maybe he didn’t want this. Maybe he thought she didn’t want this._

_Of course she had had sex before. Just never with someone she didn’t even know. But the thrill of it, of something new finally, made her fumble around with the zipper of his jacket, slowly, to give him time to back off._

_But he didn’t. One of his hand was on her waist, caressed the skin between her shirt and her jeans. The other undid the zipper himself._

“Jaune can give you a ride home, he’s sober”, Blake said. She folded the wrapping of a chocolate bar Yang was eating. Probably a boat, Yang guessed.

“I’m walking.”

“Are you sure? It’s cold and you’d take at least twenty minutes.”

“Not the first time.” She looked at her and smiled. Trying to make it seem like everything was alright. “I could use the fresh hair.”

“Yang…”

“Blake, please don’t make me talk about this.” She would probably regret saying that when she was sober, but she really didn’t need that discussion right now. “I’ll just walk.”

Blake looked concerned, of course she did. She took the little flower she had been folding out of the wrapping and tucked it behind Yang’s ear. “Mercury wanted to walk home as well, don’t you live in the same dormitory?”

Yang didn’t dare to look at her. “How am I supposed to know?”

“You could walk with him”, she said. “Just… to make sure you’re safe.”

“Blake, I’m-“

“You’ll be heading in the same direction anyway, and I wouldn’t have to be worried all night long because you’ll sure as hell forget to text me once you’re home safe.”

So everything Yang could do was picking which issue she wanted to deal with. Mercury or Blake. And of course she wouldn’t put Blake through this again.

“I’ll walk with him if you want me to”, she said. “If he agrees on that.”

“He’ll say yes if Emerald asks him to.”

 

_Here she was. Lying in bed with a hot guy who had proven even hotter without his shirt, about to have sex and all she could think of was her arm._

_It wasn’t even her first time since the accident. But each first time with someone since then had been just as awkward. Only with the difference that those people had known, that they had told her they didn’t mind at all._

_If she was completely honest sex had been awkward every time since the accident._

_She was half sitting up, leaning back on her prosthetic to run her fingers through his hair while he kissed her neck. But after all he had seen it. It was impossible to overlook. So he probably was okay with it. Was he?_

_She pulled his head up so she could kiss him. She felt his heavy breath on her cheek when he pulled back for a moment, heavy just like hers. She fumbled around with his belt until he helped her. Pulled him closer and laid down on her back until he was above her. Tried to pull his hip closer to hers with her legs until she suddenly felt something hard where it shouldn’t be._

_He flinched before she could. They both sat up, looking at each other for a moment. She couldn’t read his expression. Her leg was still pressing against his thigh, unnaturally hard. She didn’t have to ask to know it wasn’t real._

_“Don’t ask”, he said. Just that. Then he kissed her again. Harder this time, almost angrily._

He didn’t say a word as they slowly marched through the cold. She had forgotten her glove and now buried her left hand deep in the pocket of her coat. The party had been fun, at least when she hadn’t been distracted by thinking about him, but now she just felt tired and painfully sober.

“So, are you just going to pretend I’m not here until we’re home?”, she finally asked.

“Why would I?”

“Oh, come on.” He hadn’t once talked to her since Blake had introduced her to her girlfriend’s best friend. Barely looked at her.

“What, are you sulking because I didn’t ask you out on a second date?”

“Asshole”, she hissed and stopped walking. He stopped as well, turned around to look at her. Oh, at least he acknowledged it now. Acted like she was the one to blame here. “We didn’t even have a first date, we just fucked once, that’s it. But somehow you act like I did something horrible to you and now you can’t even look at me. It was just sex, get over it.”

“Maybe I just treat you the way I treat everyone else.” Now he looked seriously pissed, clenching his teeth and glaring at her as if he’d like to punch her.

“So you _are_ just an asshole?” She forced herself to take a deep breath.

“Congratulations, you finally got it.” He turned around a bit, but he didn’t walk away, as if he waited for her to join in.

“You weren’t an asshole that night, you let me into my room.”

“I was drunk.”

She rolled her eyes and walked past him, not giving a damn whether he caught up or not. “Drop dead, Black.”

She wasn’t sure if she preferred the situation before over him just being a prick in general.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, hope you kinda liked it. I'm not a native speaker and have no idea if this is any good but it's fun to write, that's for sure! Also fadingemeralds helped me with this again, thank you!


	2. Chapter 2

“Yang?”

“No…” She rolled around and pulled the blanket over her head.

“Yang!”

“I’m hungover!” It was a lie. She was just tired. “What do you want?”

“It’s almost two in the afternoon. When did you even come home?”

“Nora…”, she whined. “Just let me lie here in shame.”

“Did you make out with someone? Danced on the table without a shirt?” Nora poked her until Yang made space for her to sit down next to her on the bed. “Do I need to feel bad that I didn’t make it?”

“As if I would be ashamed of that at this point.” She sighed and looked at her roommate. Maybe talking about it wasn’t such a bad idea. “Something awkward happened.”

“Tell me all about it.” Nora was already fully dressed. Just as if she had her life under control. Unlike Yang.

“Just… hypothetically spoken.” Yang sat up and climbed out of Nora to go to the bathroom. “What if I had had a one night stand with a guy?”

“How is that hypothetical again?”

“Oh, come on, I only did it once.”

“Alright, alright. Keep going.”

Yang sighed. The only reason she told _her_ was that Nora could, against everyone’s expectations, keep a secret. “So, what if I slept with someone I shouldn’t have slept with but I didn’t know at that time?” She turned the water on to wash her face. Maybe that would let her think straight again.

“What, like a long lost brother you didn’t know about?”

“Nora!” Her roommate chuckled and Yang felt like she was getting a headache. “It’s more like… someone who is a friend of someone.”

“Wow, you now ruled out everyone without friends. I think I know who you are talking about.”

“It’s complicated, okay?” She searched for the toothpaste, found it in the shower. “It’s Mercury”, she mumbled with her toothbrush in her mouth and really hoped Nora wouldn’t hear her.

“What?!”

So she had heard her.

And just a couple of seconds later Nora was standing in the bathroom door, staring at her. “Mercury Black? Like Emerald’s Mercury?”

“It was only once, before I even knew Emerald. Before Blake knew Emerald. I didn’t know who he was!”

“You act like you had sex with her boyfriend, but he’s just her girlfriend’s best friend. What’s the big deal?”

“He’s completely ignoring me since then and it’s super awkward, and when he doesn’t he’s a complete – Nora, stop laughing!”

“I am so glad I’m completely out of this.” She shook her head and returned to the small room they shared. “Want coffee?”

“Oh god, yes.” Yang rinsed her mouth and took her pyjama off before she stepped under the shower. “So what do I do now?”, she shouted so Nora could hear her over the running water.

“About what?”

“This… everything!” She sighed and leaned her forehead against the bathroom wall. “This situation! I don’t get along with him and he has seen me naked, I never should have slept with him.”

“At this point everyone has seen you naked, Yang.” Nora came back to reach her a cup of coffee into the shower. “Maybe he’s just not worth all the thoughts you’re wasting on him.”

“God, I love you, thank you”, Yang said and sipped on the almost cold coffee, tried not to get shampoo into it. “I mean yeah, he isn’t.”

“Want my honest advice? Get yourself a boyfriend, date him for three years, be happy. Worked for me. Apart from that I have no clue. I’m not really the biggest help for situations like these.” 

Yang finished her coffee and her shower. Wrapped in a towel she returned to the mess of their room, not even trying not to step on anything on the floor. “But I can’t talk to Blake about it because she’ll sure as hell tell Emerald.”

“Don’t you think Emerald already knows?” Nora was sitting on her bed, books all around her. She had probably been studying all morning. “He’s her best friend after all.”

“No, because Emerald would have told Blake and no way Blake wouldn’t have called me out on it.” She took some clean clothes from the pile next to her bed. “I miss the times when Ren used to fold them for me.”

“That was last week.”

“Yeah, good times”, Yang said when she slipped into her underwear. “Had breakfast yet?”

“Breakfast, lunch, and the afternoon snack Ren brought me. But we still have ramen.”

“Guess ramen counts as breakfast.”


	3. Chapter 3

“So, they didn’t listen to me. I told them it wouldn’t work that way, but they did it anyway. The presentation was a mess to begin with. About five robots crashed against the wall. The professor was so done. Then it was our turn. Guess what happened.”

“Your robot crashed against the wall and exploded?”, Weiss said and sipped on her milkshake.

Ruby shook her head. “I build the sensors and they worked. But then the robot turned around, sped up and crashed right into our professor.” Her face was turning bright red, even now, hours after the incident. “He fell on his butt and I swear I thought I was going to be expelled.”

“I wish I had been there.” Yang stole one of the fries left on Blake’s plate.

Ruby buried her face in her hands. “It’s on YouTube.”

Blake chuckled. “I guess the professor was not amused?”

“He said at least ours spotted the wall, and he gave all teams two weeks to fix the problems.”

“I am rooting for the robot”, Yang said and knocked on the table with her metal fist. “I have to, I’m half a robot myself.”

“It doesn’t count as half a robot when you only have half of a robot arm, that’s not more than twenty percent”, Weiss said.

“Come on, it’s more than half of my arm.” Yang glanced at Blake, who suddenly seemed overly busy with her phone. “So how was your date with Scarlet, Weiss?”

“It wasn’t a date! We just went to have a cup of coffee together after a lecture. I paid for my coffee myself.”

“You’re still into him?”

“Well, I don’t know. Probably not.” Weiss shrugged. “I guess I’d have to get to know him a bit better first. I mean how can you tell when you never really… did anything instead of a goodbye hug.”

Yang raised her eyebrows. She exchanged some meaningful gazes with Blake. But this topic was not for today. “Anyone up for dessert?”

“Me!” Ruby already reached for the card.

“That milkshake counts as dessert”, Blake said.

“It might, but no one said you can’t have more than one.”

 

* * *

 

“So, one question”, Weiss said as she opened the door to her dorm room. “Why again don’t Emerald and Blake just swap with one of us and share a room together?”

“Because they’re both afraid they’d just annoy each other after a while. Also Blake says she can’t be around her all the time, she needs space in a relationship.” Ruby followed Weiss inside and took her shoes off. Unlike the room she shared with Emerald this one was so tidy and clean it almost intimidated her. She sat down on Blake’s bed. The wall next to it was covered with her paintings, watercolours, rushed sketches and black and white drawings that never failed to make Ruby a bit jealous. “Also I’m not complaining, Blake always gets me a cupcake when I let them have the room for a night.”

“I will not fit in any of my clothes if Blake continues to bring me cupcakes.” Weiss stepped in front of the mirror and undid her bun, letting her white hair fall down on her shoulders.

“Hey, it’s like a sleepover.” Ruby tried not to look at her.

“Only that I have a lecture tomorrow at eight.” Weiss began to brush her hair. “Need to borrow a pyjama?”

“I think I still got some clean clothes here, but thanks.”

“I got you a new toothbrush. Yours is marked red, remember that.” She began to braid her long hair like she usually did before she went to sleep, and took off her blue sweater. “I feel like I am sharing this room with three people, not just one.”

“Well, technically you kinda do.” Ruby smiled at her. They had planned to be roommates at first, but eventually decided against it because Weiss was constantly complaining about Ruby’s mess already, also Ruby got along with Emerald surprisingly well. “Want to use the bathroom first?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Ruby put on her pyjama while Weiss was in the bathroom. She looked at some of Blake’s drawings on the wall, then the photographs on Weiss’ side of the room. She knew most of them, mostly because she _was_ in most of them, along with Blake and Yang. One just with Weiss and Jaune, a couple of pictures with her and Winter. No pictures of any other family members. She never dared to ask why.

She made sure not to touch any of Weiss’ belongings, only to look at things that were displayed for everyone to see. She didn’t want to sneak around, she was just curious. But she already knew the room quite well. She sat back down on Blake’s bed, read the back of one of her books on the night shelf.

“Your turn now”, Weiss said, coming out of the bathroom. She had changed into a white nightgown and sat back down on the bed. “Tell me if you need anything.”

Ruby lazily brushed her teeth and washed her face. When she got back into the room Weiss was already lying in her bed. Ruby crawled under Blake’s blanket. “Can I turn off the lights?”

“Yes, please.”

“Goodnight”, Ruby whispered into the dark.

“Sleep well, Ruby.”

The room looked different in the dark, but Ruby had gotten used to it. Being away from home had made her anxious, no doubt, but she only struggled when she had to sleep alone. Weiss’ presence was comforting, even more than Emerald’s. Probably just because she and Weiss were good friends by now.

Probably just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted some interaction with Ruby and Weiss. This is not even the start of White Rose yet, guys, don't worry. Barely a hint. Next chapter is when stuff is actually happening.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever just write something and think "No, Yang, that's stupid and you're drunk, stop that!" and then it gets far worse and you're just like "She'd totally do that but I am cringing so hard right now"? Drunk Yang is a mess of poor life choices and cringeworthy actions. I can't.

“I just don’t like him”, Yang said. “He’s rude. That’s it.”

“Okay, I owe you something. I will totally make up for it.”

“Why does it even have to be me?” Yang was freezing, trying to warm herself by drinking her coffee faster. It was October and this promised to be a frosty autumn and winter. They had spent the morning searching for a new coat for Blake, but even though Yang had been convinced Blake looked stunning in every single one of them they headed back home with empty hands.

“He doesn’t like being around just Emerald and me. Being the third wheel. And he’s her best friend, so I’m trying to bond with him. Who would be better for that than _my_ best friend? Also Weiss hates him, Ruby is too shy, Jaune too awkward, Ren too calm.”

Yang had never felt more sympathetic towards Weiss. “He will probably just think you’re trying to set us up.”

“He’d probably be just as fond of the idea as you are. You two are truly perfect for each other. But I think he’d be even less fond of spending time alone with me.”

Yang quickly looked away. Blake had no idea how right and wrong she was about that. No way she would have that conversation now. “So you just want us to have a drink?”

“Just an hour or two. Maybe you two bond along the way. Can’t hurt to make a new friend, does it?”

Just that Mercury Black would probably never be someone she called her friend. Yang sighed. “Alright, alright. Invite me for a cocktail and I’m in.”

Blake beamed at her. “You’re the best!”

 

* * *

 

For a moment Yang considered not drinking anything tonight in case she might say something that gave her little encounter with Mercury away, but that would probably have been even more suspicious. So she went for a rum coke, pulling her top down a bit so the barkeeper would put extra much rum in it. Totally worked every time.

Of course Mercury went for coke. He just had to be the mature one here, still not even looking at her. He didn’t completely ignore her, but he also didn’t really talk to her. Yang sipped on her drink and thought about how satisfying it would look running through his soft hair and down is offensively handsome face.

“I swear to god, if a guy ever asks me to draw them naked again I will make him do it.” Blake reached across the table to take Emerald’s hand in hers. “Sitting completely still in an uncomfortable pose for an hour is no fun at all.”

“Oh, did you ever try it out?”, Emerald asked.

“No, but I know people who did. And I took the classes of course, nothing is less erotic than not getting someone’s abs right.”

“I don’t think anyone who sees me naked would ever forget that.” She looked at Mercury for a moment, trying to spot any reaction on his face. At this point she didn’t even care anymore. Damn, yes, she had slept with him. And she was going to handle it like the adult she was supposed to be and acknowledge it while also moving on. For a moment he was looking at her, but his expression didn’t give anything away.

“God, Yang. One day I will make you pose for me.” Blake shook her head.

“You could sell those pictures for quite a bit of money. They would make you famous.”

“Sometimes you have more self-confidence than a single person should be able to possess”, Emerald said. “But actually I envy you about it.”

“Actually I’m just almost drunk.” Yang shrugged and leaned back. The lack of reaction from Mercury started to really, really annoy her. She slipped out of her boots and softly tipped against Mercury’s shoe. No reaction.

“I’d be totally wasted after one of those”, Emerald said. “I get drunk by nothing at all.” That probably explained why she was still at her first beer.

“Well, it just means you’re a cheap drunk”, Yang said and slowly pressed her foot against Mercury’s leg. She could feel his jeans, the hard metal beneath it. No reaction.

“But a beautiful drunk”, Blake added. Something she never would have said while sober. At least not with other people around.

Yang slowly added a bit more pressure, tried to think about how much pressure she actually needed to feel something touching her arm. A bit. But either his prosthetic was working differently than hers or he was ignoring her playing footsie with him. Just for science of course.

“You’re more beautiful when you’re drunk”, Emerald said and Yang felt like she was too drunk and too single for this. At least Mercury rolled his eyes as well. Yang tipped against his knee with her toe. No reaction. She tipped a bit harder. A bit higher up on his thigh. Would she feel that on her arm? Hard to tell. She rested her foot on his metal thigh, right above his knee, careful not to lay the full weight of her leg on it.

Now Emerald was bending over the table to pull Blake into a kiss. Yang rolled her eyes. Definitely too single and not drunk enough. She slowly moved her foot upwards, looking at Mercury again who was scanning the room with his eyes. She hoped not to crumble his jeans to much as she moved upwards and froze as she suddenly realised she had made a big mistake. Under her toes, under layers of her tights and his jeans, she didn’t feel metal anymore, but actual flesh and bones.

Well, now he was staring at her. She was too proud to look away first, but quickly sat up and removed her foot from his thigh. He clenched his teeth. She winked at him provocatively. He probably just thought she was trying to hit on him. Sending the wrong signals? Yeah, definitely. But now it was too late anyway. Fuck, she definitely didn’t want him to think that.

“Guys, stop making such a big fuss about it”, Emerald said and both their glares shot towards her. Yang stopped breathing for a moment. Did she know? Did she see something? “It was just a kiss, I swear, we will keep it down a bit.”

Yang slowly exhaled and slipped back into her boots. “We just don’t want to be indiscrete by staring at you.”

“Blake is just affectionate every time she’s drunk. And incredibly cute.”

Blake blushed. “Oh, stop it.”

“You lovebirds excuse me for a minute?” Yang smiled at them and got up to make her way to the restrooms. They were in the basement and Yang felt incredibly sober as she walked down the stairs. She didn’t even need to use the restroom, she had just wanted to get away for a moment, to catch her breath and deal with how embarrassed she’d later feel about this. The water was cold as she washed her hands and she stared into the mirror. Her cheeks were bright red, but that could be due to the alcohol. She sighed, thought about just staying down here forever, but that wouldn’t solve anything.

She pushed the door open and almost stumbled into Mercury. “Fuck”, she hissed. “What are you doing here?”

He rolled his eyes, arms crossed in front of his chest. “What were you doing up there?”

“Well, what do you think? No, stop, don’t answer that. It was not _that_.” She moved back until she was leaning against the wall. “You told me not to talk about it, remember?”

“About _what_?”

“Your damn legs.”

He fell silent for a moment, pressed his lips together as he looked at her. “I told you not to _ask_ ”, he finally said.

“So I didn’t ask. I just tried it out.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“How sensitive they are. I wanted to try out how hard I could press until you’d notice.” She bit her lip for a moment. It sounded more ridiculous when said aloud. “Okay, listen, I’m drunk, I do stupid things when I’m drunk. I once gave a lapdance to Weiss and there is still this video of me- anyway, stop staring at me like that.”

“Not very.”

“What?”

“They’re not very sensitive.”

She stared at him for a moment, fumbling around with her hair. He didn’t look that angry anymore, expression a bit softer. Or she just wanted to believe that too much. “So you’re gonna keep ignoring me?”

“I’m not ignoring you.” He rolled his eyes, but well, at least he definitely didn’t look like he was about to murder her anymore. “Did you tell anyone?”

“About-“

“My legs.” He stared at some point on the wall next to her. “Not the sex. I don’t care about that.”

“No”, she said, calm for a moment. Didn’t people know about it? Well, she knew and still had struggled to even spot hints. But why keep it a secret? Then again, she had never really had a choice. You couldn’t just cover an arm all the time without raising questions.

“Good”, he said, now looking at her again.

“And I won’t, but _why_ are you treating me like that?”

“I’m seriously not treating you that differently than everyone else, Yang.” It was probably the first time he had ever said her name. “Can we just go back now and pretend it never happened?”

“You’re not the most social person, are you?”

“Nope.” He shrugged like he couldn’t care less.

“But why then do you pretend the only time you got a pretty girl to fuck you didn’t happen?” She winked at him while walking towards the stairs.

He pulled her back by the shoulder, only slightly. It would have been easy for her to just walk back upstairs. Ignore him. But of course she didn’t, instead stopped and turned around.

She always, always made stupid decisions when she was drunk.

“Trying to get on my nerves?” He raised his eyebrows, but it looked rather amused than annoyed.

“Just trying to make you want me so I can brush you off.”

“And you call me rude.”

His hand was still resting on her shoulder. She slowly moved closer. “You were brushing me off when I tried something on you before.”

“I thought you weren’t hitting on me.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that, did you? So technically I was.”

“Come on, that doesn’t count.”

“It so does count. Because if I were-“

She wasn’t sure if he kissed her because he wanted to or just to shut her up. The kiss was rough, or passionate to people who actually liked each other. She bit on his lip, not enough to hurt, moved a hand to his neck and he laid his hands on her waist to pull her closer. He was an asshole, but after all he was also hot. One day she would probably have to learn she couldn’t always blame everything on the one drink she had had.

But not today.

His hands wandered over her body, definitely not careful and she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. She pushed him back, towards the door of the girl’s restrooms, and he quickly got what she wanted, pulled her inside with him. Pinned her against the door and his lips found hers again, his teeth scratching over her chin, his hands searching their way under her shirt. Her hand fumbled around with his belt and he chuckled when she struggled with it like last time, she could feel it vibrating on her skin. He helped her, then pulled at her shirt again, impatiently. She could hear fabric being ripped apart. “Fuck”, he mumbled. At this moment she didn’t even care.

“Me”, she said and unbuttoned her skirt.

“What?”

“Fuck me.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”, he groaned and didn’t wait for an answer, just locked her lips with his again.

 

* * *

 

“Where have you guys been?” Blake looked slightly worried when Yang sat down next to her, stared at Mercury’s sweater. The one Yang was wearing now.

“You won’t believe what happened”, Yang said. She tried not to look at Mercury. “There was this girl and she was totally wasted. Couldn’t even keep herself up anymore. She stumbled upon me on the stairway when I wanted to get back up and vomited all over my shirt.”

“Not all over it, it wasn’t that much”, Mercury said and for a moment Yang was impressed by his acting skills.

“Anyway, I almost yelled at her, then Merc and I tried to wash it out, but I got frustrated and he borrowed me his sweater. Threw the shirt away.” She leaned back. “I think this is the sign not to visit shady bars anymore. Trying to wash someone else’s puke out of my shirt in my bra.” More accurately: Fucking a guy she barely knew and definitely didn’t like in the women’s restroom of a bar, having him rip her shirt while her best friend and her girlfriend said upstairs, probably making out. Mercury chuckled and she wanted to pinch him, then ask him what was so funny about it.

“This is not a shady bar, they serve family breakfast”, Blake said.

“Anyway, do you want to go home and shower?”, Emerald asked.

“Yeah, I think so. Also it’s super hot in here and this sweater is way too warm. But I think they’ll throw me out if I sit here in just my underwear.”

“The music is getting bad anyway.” Blake looked at Mercury. “Sure you’re not getting too cold with just your shirt?”

He shook his head. “I still got my coat.”

“Alright, then let’s go.” Emerald got up and wrapped an arm around Blake’s waist as they headed to the exit of the pub. It forced Yang and Mercury to walk next to each other. She didn’t dare to look at him. For a moment she was sure to feel his hand touching hers, but it was so brief she couldn’t tell if it had been an accident or even happened at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like honestly, I'm done. I'm out. Those two are killing me. Can you believe them? Can you believe I just wrote that? 
> 
> Anyway, next one will be fun as well.


	5. Chapter 5

“If I go now I will not get it done until next week.” Ruby laid down her screwdriver and whatever she had been working on. Her desk was a horrible mess, screws, gear wheels, cables, something that once might have been a calculator and other metal things that Weiss couldn’t name. Weiss felt the urge to bring some sort of order into this mess, but she just crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“You will just overwork yourself”, she said. “You can come along for an hour or two, relax, and as you don’t drink anyway you can go back to work afterwards.”

“I can work until midnight, then Emerald wants to sleep, that’s the deal.” Ruby leaned back and closed her eyes. Her hair was messy and something dark was smeared across her forehead, probably motor oil. Weiss wanted to wipe it away, couldn’t be healthy.

“I won’t say anything if Emerald stays over at our room until you got your project done. I mean they promised not to… do anything as long as I’m in the same room.”

“Really?” Ruby turned around and looked at her, smiling adoringly. “You’re the best.”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it, just get your coat and let’s go.”

“Alright, alright.” She finally got up. “I’ll just wash my hands real quick, okay?”

“And maybe your face, you… got something there.”

“Thanks, mum.” Ruby chuckled and disappeared into the bathroom.

“Dolt!”, she yelled back fondly and shook her head. What she meant was thank you. For coming along, for taking a break from work to join them. Weiss rarely liked to admit it, but as much as she liked the others, Ruby managed to make her feel comfortable like no one else. She didn’t even know why. She just did.

The room was a mess, but not as bad as Yang’s and Nora’s. Some of Blake’s drawings hung on the walls, especially on Emerald’s side. Ruby’s side was much more dominated by photos of friends and family. Weiss couldn’t keep herself from at least making Ruby’s bed, neatly folding the blanket and fluffing the pillow.

“Do we need to bring something?”

Weiss turned around as if she had done something forbidden, but Ruby didn’t even seem to notice. She had also brushed her hair, and Weiss wasn’t sure what she liked better. “What?”

“To the party. Drinks, snacks?”

“Oh, yeah, I got a bottle of wine, that’s enough from the two of us. Ready?”

“Yep.” Ruby put on her red coat and grabbed her bag. “Ready when you are.”

Neptune had the weird habit to throw parties in his dorm room every other weekend and inviting more people than according to science could possibly fit in there.

“A bit crowded”, Ruby said as she and Weiss were trying to make their way through the small room. Yang waved with her robotic arm to get their attention, sitting on the window shelf. She beamed at them when they finally reached them.

“So glad you made it, sis”, she said and pulled Ruby into a hug. “I saved you a bottle of coke before anyone can mix it with Rum.”

“She threatened to break some guy’s nose when he tried to get it from her”, Blake said, leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of her chest. “Two heads taller than her and he still backed off.”

“Where is Jaune’s bed?”, Weiss asked.

“Sun’s room.” Yang reached behind her back to pull out the hardly fought over bottle of coke and a bottle of wine. “I helped them carry it over there.” She took a sip from the wine bottle and offered it to Weiss who gladly took it.

“Hello, my favourite guests”, Neptune said all of a sudden right next to Weiss, wrapping his arms around hers and Ruby’s shoulders. She almost choked on her wine, coughed and blushed. “You alright, Snow Angel?”

“Yes”, she said, trying to force herself to breath normally, but it didn’t help at all. He patted her back to help her, but that definitely didn’t make her any less nervous. “Nice party.”

“Glad you like it.” He smiled at her and made her blush once again. “Let me know if I can get you anything.”

“Just curious, where does Jaune sleep tonight?”, Ruby asked.

“Oh, with Pyrrha. Sun got her a couple of those protein bars to make up for it.” He turned around to leave. Weiss took another sip from the wine bottle. Now or never.

“Hey, Neptune!”

He turned around and she was forced to stand right in front of him so no one would push themselves between them. He was so tall she felt like talking to a giant. “Yeah?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee with me, like… maybe after class sometime?”

For a horrible moment he looked unsure, then he smiled. “Sure. I’ll call you up?”

“Yes, that would be great.”

“Alright, see you!”

He disappeared into the crowd and she turned back to her friends, handing the wine to Blake. “Do you-“

“Weiss Schnee.” Yang stared at her and just now Weiss noticed that all three of them were staring at her. “Did you just ask Neptune out on a date?”

“It’s not a date”, Weiss said. “I mean… not necessarily. Come on, stop looking at me like that. Yang, you dated people, and Blake, you date someone at the moment. It’s not unusual.”

“Just unusual for you”, Yang said. She and Blake exchanged a look for a moment, one that Weiss didn’t understand. Not sure if she even wanted to. “We’re just happy for you. Oh, you have to tell me all about it when you finally go out.” Yang smiled at her.

“If we do, maybe he forgets about it.”

Blake raised her eyebrows, only for a moment, but Yang laid a hand on her shoulder and she didn’t say anything. If Weiss had been even a tiny bit more drunk she would have called her out on it. Did she know anything Weiss didn’t know? After all she was pretty close to Sun, Sun was Neptune’s best friend. Or did she just not approve of her choice?

“I think I’ll go soon”, Ruby said, sounding somehow distressed. Probably just all the people around, Ruby had never been good at handling crowds. Weiss blamed herself for making her come in the first place. She shouldn’t have been so selfish. “Much work left to do.”

“Are you alright?”, Weiss asked.

Ruby nodded quickly. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll take you home.” Yang jumped off the window shelf.

“Oh, come on, I’m not a kid anymore.”

“You’ll always be a kid to me. Your dorm building is on the other side of the campus. Also I can use your toilet then, nothing will make me go inside this bathroom.”

“Alright, alright. See you then”, Ruby said, waving at them before she made her way outside with Yang.

“Yang is a bit overprotective”, Blake said, sipping on the wine.

“Well, she’s Yang.” Weiss took Yang’s place on the window shelf. For some reason the party felt far less exciting all of a sudden. “So, how is your new art project going?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I'd like to mention is that Ruby doesn't not drink because she's underage. She's about 19/20 in this story and with 18 you're legal to drink in Europe so why not in this AU? She just doesn't like to drink.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art and bad decisions. Where is Nora when you need her?

All of a sudden the realisation hit her like a train. She had once agreed on this and now she would be forced to go on double dates with Emerald, Blake and Mercury for as long as her best friend dated that girl.

She couldn’t bring herself to hope for them to break up. They were too happy, to cute together.

An art exhibition, out of all the things Blake could have chosen. At least Blake had spent their whole way to the museum talking to Mercury, following her mission to bond with him, so Yang had been left with Emerald, and she had grown to really like Emerald. But now Blake and Emerald stood arm in arm in front of a plain blue canvas and Yang was tempted to just fall asleep on one of those soft benches in the middle of the room. Only that she wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be art as well. Only that Mercury was standing right next to her, arms crossed like her, and they hadn’t spoken a word to each other all day long. The silence felt more and more awkward. Unfortunately her approach to deal with awkward situations had always been to deal with them as openly as possible until she had convinced herself there was nothing to be ashamed of.

“So, are we going to pretend it never happened and spend the rest of our days not talking to each other?” If there was one perk of being in a museum it probably was that she could whisper to him without anyone getting suspicious.

“Is that your way of telling me you want to talk about it?” He moved closer, lowered his voice so it was almost inaudible.

“I don’t think there’s much to talk about. But that wasn’t my question, because if there would be something to be talked about, would we say it out loud or just choke on it?”

He chuckled and she had no idea what could possibly be so funny about what she had said. “You mean like your unbearable desire to rip my clothes off again?”

She exhaled sharply and glared at him. His smirk was so smug she felt the sudden urge to rip _that_ off of him. “Or _your_ unbearable desire to actually rip my clothes. I liked that top.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He so wasn’t.

“You were way more needy than I was.” Yang stared at Blake and Emerald, but they were still cuddling in front of the canvas, not having any idea what she and Mercury were talking about.

“Oh, was I? You didn’t sound like it.”

“Did anyone ever tell you how insufferable you can be?”

“Emerald does that almost every day.”

Yang shook her head. “No idea how she keeps up with you. At least I didn’t drink today so I won’t make poor decisions again like fucking you in the bathroom.” Always blame the alcohol. Another rule to deal with possible embarrassment. She knew it never convinced anyone.

“Are you sure? These ones are big and clean.”

“I…” She just stared at him for a moment, then clenched her teeth. “Also they would know.”

“No, just look at them. They’ve been staring at this… thing for almost ten minutes now. At this rate they will take almost an hour for the entire room. We’ll just tell them we had a look at the rest of the exhibition, then searched for them, but failed to find them, after all every room kinda looks the same. They’ll totally buy it.”

“Only if you don’t mess with my clothes or my hair. And - why am I even considering this?”

He laughed. “Because you want me”, he said and then walked off to the next room. She wasn’t sure if it was meant to be the end of the conversation or an invitation to join him. She wasn’t sure if she preferred him ignoring her over him teasing her and being insufferably smug about it.

Apparently she also made poor decisions while sober because she followed him.

“So you really want to do this again?”, she asked, sitting down next to him on the bench. It wasn’t as soft as it looked.

“Was that an offer?”

“Still thinking about it.” She stared at the painting in front of them, red lines across a white canvas. “But this is not a cheesy romantic thing. No dates.”

“Got it.”

“And we are not doing this when things get weird. If you can screw me you can talk to me. Also no restrooms anymore, I won’t sink that low ever again. Anything from your side?”

He fell silent for a moment, just looking at her with an expression she couldn’t read. Her heart was beating way too fast. “So far not”, he eventually said. “Only that your toilet rule will make it a bit hard to find something right now.”

“Can’t wait?”

He smirked. “My roommate’s gone for the week.”

“So when we get back?”

“Yes.” He let his gaze wander through the room for a moment before he looked at her again. “If I make it through this, I feel like I have seen more art than I ever wanted to.”

“Let Blake explain it to you”, she said. “It makes it way more interesting, trust me. Also she wants to bond with you.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Bond with me? Why?”

“You’re important to Emerald, idiot. That’s why.” She got up. “I’ll see if I can get a coffee anywhere in here.” Or find someone who could talk her out of this before she convinced herself this idea wasn’t _that_ bad.

But after all Blake had wanted her to bond with Mercury, hadn't she?


	7. Chapter 7

Yang woke up without knowing where she was. She first thought she was in her room, but the bed sheets felt different, smelled different. And she was naked.

Oh, yeah. This again.

She sat up. Mercury was sitting on the floor, leaning against the closet while typing something on his laptop. “Was I asleep?”, she asked, voice still sounding tired.

“Or you’ve just been lying there with closed eyes for two hours, I don’t know.” He didn’t look up, but he stopped typing for a moment.

“Where are my clothes?”

“Chair.”

She got up. He must have put them there, on top of a pile of his own clothes. No idea why he had even bothered. The room was like all the other dorm rooms, two beds, to desks, two closets. Only that his side was a complete mess. No surprise that he was sitting on the floor, the desk was clutched with notes, clothes and food packages, not all of them empty. And the other side of the room was so tidy it would have made Weiss jealous.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”, she asked while putting her clothes back on. He didn’t have any photos on the walls, nothing really personal apart from the pile of underwear under the desk. The only thing she could find out was that apparently he was a chemistry major, if she trusted the only two books on his desk.

“I thought you’d bother me less if I’d just let you sleep.”

She turned around so he could see she was rolling her eyes. He was looking at her now, she had no idea how long he had been watching her. Not that she really cared. Nothing he hadn’t seen before. “Well, see you around then”, she said.

“Yeah.” He started typing again and Yang slipped into her boots. She left the room without another word. It felt weird. Distant. But apart from that actually not bad at all.  

 

* * *

 

“I swear, next time I’m going to kill him”, he said. “I mean I don’t even have to. I’ll just let him go on, keep good distance and watch how he sets himself on fire. I’ll have the time of my life, but I think he’s too stupid even for that.”

“In short, your lab partner’s a bit annoying.” Emerald rolled her eyes and took her shoes off before she sat down with him on the floor.

“Puts it a bit lightly. Anyway, what do you have for me today?”

“Chicken masala.” She began to unpack her bag. Tupper boxes because one of her new friends had talked her into reducing waste, plates and cutlery because she didn’t trust him with that while his roommate was gone, and probably she was right with that. She part time worked in a restaurant that always had leftovers, and it was usually the only real meal he had apart from protein bars and toast. “I can put it in the microwave real quick.”

“Only if you want to, I don’t care.”

“And I’m starving.” She opened the boxes and began to pour the inside on two plates before she handed him one. “Anyway, did you have fun today?”

“What?” He almost choked on his food.

“Our trip to the museum. With Blake.”

Of course she didn’t know. He hadn’t told her about Yang, mainly because screwing her girlfriend’s best friend would easily count as making things complicated to her. She had told him to be nice to and for god’s sake not scared them away because then she would personally choke him. Not to start screwing them. “Yeah, was… artsy. Never seen that many ripped canvasses ever before.”

“And Blake?”

He looked up. Emerald was looking at him, plate on her lap, but she hadn’t touched her food yet. “We had that before”, he said. “I like her, I’m glad you’re happy, I hope you’ll live happily ever after, blablabla.”

“That’s not what I’ve meant.” She looked disappointed and that always caught him off guard.

He sighed. “I mean she’s nice”, he said. “I think we might get along.”

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Em, come on. Do you really want to have that talk now?”

“Yes, I do.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, eat then, because you’ll just rip my throat when you’re hungry.”

She had murder in her eyes, but she started to shove food into her mouth like her life depended on it. So they ate in silence, but it was honestly better than having a starving Emerald snapping at him. He waited for her to eat up and clean the plates before he patted on the ground next to him.

She hesitated for a moment, then she sat down next to him and rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry”, she mumbled.

“For dragging me to a museum of modern art? Yeah, you should be.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, but he smiled.

“Oh, come on. You know what I mean. I just don’t want you to be left out when I do something with Blake’s friends, that’s why I want you to get along with them.”

It was too cute to be mad at her. He ruffled her hair, despite her protest. “I’ll be alright. You know that.”

“I didn’t-“

“I don’t need anyone. But I don’t mind it. I won’t bite anyone and I won’t die from socialising once in a while. Can we drop that topic now?”

“If you insist.”

“I do.” He knew she wasn’t pleased but he also knew this wouldn’t lead anywhere good.

“Okay.” She sat up and looked at him. “So then, tell me why you bought a box of condoms. Who are they for?”

He groaned. He knew he should have put them away earlier and not just throw them on the desk. “No one. Can’t hurt to have them, can it?”

“Are you seeing someone?” She smirked and he didn’t like it. Usually it was the other way around.

“No. One night stands happen, Em.”

“But not for you.”

“Maybe I just don’t tell you, huh? Don’t want to upset your gay head with all my straight sex stories.”

She didn’t buy it. Crossed her arms in front of his chest and stared at him until he had to look away. Telling her about Yang would just make things overly complicated, because she would tell Blake and then everyone would know and ending this little affair would be much harder. Also she wouldn’t let him hear the end of treating her properly and blablabla.

“I just keep my pants on”, he said. “Works if you don’t mind skipping the romantic part and just want to fuck on the toilet of a shitty club.”

“Didn’t need that much detail.”

“You asked.” He smirked and she pinched him.

“Sometimes you’re insufferable.”

He pushed the thought of Yang aside. “Probably. But you love me anyway.”


	8. Chapter 8

It had always been easier for Ruby to work while listening to loud music. Weiss never understood her, for her it would have been nothing but distracting as she kept pointing out, but Ruby could focus on her work for hours when the loud guitars sheltered her from the world around her. She looked at the mess in front of her. Disassembling the robot had probably been a terrible, terrible idea, because she had no idea if she would be able to put it all back together in time.

Something touched her shoulder and she screeched. She turned around and rolled back with her chair until she hit the desk, only to stare into Weiss’ shocked face. She took her headphones off.

“I knocked”, Weiss said. “Emerald said you would be here. I brought you coffee and cake.”

“Oh god, I didn’t hear you.” She turned the music off.

“Obviously. Wash your hands before you eat.”

She nodded and got up, still a bit shocked. It wasn’t unusual for Weiss to just step by for a visit, or to bring some sweets while doing so, but she really hadn’t expected her right now. But a break was probably just what she needed. She washed her hands even though she thought it was unnecessary, then sat down next to Weiss on her bed. “Oh, thank you so much”, she said when Weiss handed her a cup of coffee. It smelled like caramel.

“Did you make progress with your project?” Weiss sipped on her coffee and put it on the night shelve before she unpacked a pink box that looked like it was definitely from one of the more expensive bakeries in town. “It’s just a leftover, Winter had some guests this afternoon.”

“I think I’m going insane. When this is over I won’t do anything for a week or so. I already dream of robots.”

“You can do it. Do you have plates and forks here or do I have to go to the kitchen?”

“No, next to the microwave on Emerald’s desk.”

Weiss got up. “Not long and it will be over, you’ll be proud of yourself and we have something to celebrate.” She found the plates and inspected them as if she didn’t trust her to actually clean them. Ruby would have been offended if she hadn’t been in Yang’s room before.

“I know. But I won’t have a real break until Christmas.”

“It’s not that long until then.” Weiss handed her a plate with cake, soft layers of whipped cream and dark biscuit.

“Will you join us for Christmas?”, Ruby asked before she took the first bite. The cake definitely made up for a lot of what this project had thrown at her today.  

“I don’t know, Winter hasn’t made up her mind yet. She’s still thinking about just working through the holidays.”

“You should come anyway, you’re a part of the family now. Even if Winter doesn’t come, Qrow will be there and he’s your brother in law after all.”

She smiled for a brief moment. None of her elegant, controlled smiles, one that was genuine and for some reason she always seemed to try to suppress it. “I’ll just see how my studying goes.” She got up and neatly folded the carton from the bakery before she threw it into the bin. “I’ll leave you alone now, I don’t want to keep you away from your project for too long.”

Ruby knew she was right, but she also really didn’t want her to leave. For some reason Weiss always managed to calm her down like no one else. “Thanks for the cake”, she said, but meant much more.

“Oh, those were just leftovers. Now keep going!”


	9. Chapter 9

For a moment Blake didn’t want to fully wake up. Her head rested on Emerald’s chest, arms and legs wrapped around each other for warmth and comfort. She slowly raised her head even though she didn’t want to.

“Finally awake?”, Emerald asked. Her fingers began to stroke Blake’s neck and she let her head sink back on Emerald’s chest.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Not more than an hour. But I’ve got so much reading done while you were sleeping.”

“You’re so comfortable.” Blake shifted a bit so she could bury her face in the crouch of Emerald’s neck. “Do you want me to leave you alone so you can study?”

“No, stay.” Emerald’s fingers traced the shape of Blake’s curves, drew small patterns on her back. “You’re cute when you’re asleep.”

Blake smiled and kissed Emerald’s neck. “How do you feel about dinner tonight?”

“Anything in mind?”

“We can ask Yang and Mercury if they want to join us.”

Emerald chuckled. “You really do want to bond with him, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Blake slightly tickled her until she quivered a little. “He’s after all the closest I’ll get to bonding with your parents.”

“Blake”, Emerald groaned. “Please never refer to him as my parents again.”

“Come on, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do.” She softly ran her fingers through Blake’s hair. “I’ll call him.”

Blake pulled herself up on her forearms to steal a kiss from her while Emerald took  her phone and waited for Mercury to pick up. She rolled her eyes in silent protest, but she pulled her in for another kiss that ended way too early when Mercury finally answered his phone.

“Hey, idiot”, Emerald said. “Keen to have dinner with me and Blake tonight?” Blake couldn’t understand what Mercury was saying, but it didn’t stop her from placing soft kisses along Emerald’s jawline. “We might ask Yang as well if that changes your mind. Well, alright, see you.” Emerald hung up and pulled Blake into a kiss. “You can be so damn distracting when you’re awake. But he says he’s busy. I think he has someone over.”

“Oh, do you think he’s actually dating someone?”

“That would actually surprise me. He’s a bit…”

“Antisocial?”

“Incapable to let people in. I mean I’d be so happy if he actually found someone, but he’ll probably stay single forever.” She sighed and avoided to look at her. “We can still invite Yang.”

Blake kissed her temple. She didn’t dare to touch the topic yet, but ever since the two of them had started dating Emerald had been eager to spend time with her friends as well. As far as Blake knew Mercury was Emerald’s only friend apart from the new ones she made through her. The only thing that came close to a family. But Blake was more than happy to share her friends with her.

“I’ll call her”, she said and reached for her phone. It took a while for Yang to pick up, enough time for another kiss.

“Hey, what’s up?” Yang said, sounding a bit out of breath.

“Do you want to grab some dinner with Emmy and me?”

“Well, I just came from a run. I have to shower and then Nora wanted to help me with that math problem. I think I won’t be ready until… late.”

“I don’t want to keep you from studying. Maybe another time?”

“Yeah, definitely. Have fun and say Em hello from me. Bye!” Yang hung up before Blake could say another word.

“Guess just the two of us then”, Blake said.

“Well, I can’t complain.” Emerald smiled and kissed her cheek.


	10. Chapter 10

“This is not what I expected”, Neptune said.

“What do you mean?” Weiss chuckled to hide how nervous she was.

“You have all the possibilities in front of you, everything skilled people can do with a coffee machine, and you pick-“

“Coffee.” She shook her head. “It’s a coffee shop. Why shouldn’t I pick coffee?”

“Yeah, I mean… you’re almost right. But I honestly expected you to pick some Caramel Macchiato with soy milk and agave syrup.”

“That’s what Ruby would pick and I think it’s a disgrace to everyone involved in the process of making good coffee, from those who harvest the plants to the nice woman serving it here.”

“I’m glad I just went for Latte Macchiato.” He picked up the two cups the waitress put on the counter for them and handed her hers.

She could feel her cheeks burn. She just hoped he wouldn’t notice. “I’m open minded. I’m still friends with Ruby after all.”

“That’s admirable. Do you take sugar?”

“No.”

He grabbed two packs of sugar for himself and they left the coffee shop. It had rained earlier, but now it was sunny, almost warm, and the air still smelled like rain and autumn. “So how’s your studying going?”, he asked.

“Oh, quite well actually.” She took a sip of her coffee because she ran out of things to say and almost burned her tongue.

“I think business is badass, it has so much… business.” He fumbled around with his cup and the sugar bags, for a moment he almost seemed awkward. Weiss smiled.

“Want me to hold the lid?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“Oh, wait, you’ll just drop it. Hold that.” She took the sugar bags out of his hand and gave him her cup instead. “Do you really want to use both?”

“Well, I have to somehow keep up with you, sweet as you are.”

She blushed even though she knew it was a stupid thing to say. She shook the bags before she opened them and poured the sugar into his cup. “Did you take something to stir? A spoon?”

“I’ll just shake it around a bit.”

“You’ll just have it all dropping to the bottom.”

“That’s the best part of it!”

She shook her head and securely closed the cup with the lid. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I’ll be thinking of you every time I have the last overly sweet sip of my coffee.”

She smiled and almost didn’t dare to look at him. His smile was warm, but it didn’t make her any less nervous. “So… where do you want to go now?” She hated the insecurity in her voice.

“The park?”

“The park sounds lovely.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Okay, I don’t get it”, Yang finally said.

“What?” He opened his eyes again and looked at her. They didn’t really touch, even though his bed was small, his arm casually spread out on the pillow above her head. It didn’t feel distant, rather comfortable.

“What you said earlier, when I took your shirt off.”

“Do you really expect me to remember what I said then?” He closed his eyes again.

“You said ‘One rule, nothing on the floor’, and then you threw your shirt on the desk.”

He chuckled, his hand playing with a strand of her hair. “And I thought you wanted to have a serious conversation.”

“Maybe it is? Honestly, this room is a mess. That empty pizza box has been lying on your desk ever since I’ve first been here. But you won’t let me throw your shirt on the floor.”

“Yep.”

“Do I get an explanation?”

“It’s just a deal with my roommate. Did you think about that the whole time?”

“Well, no. But doesn’t he complain about your side of the room from time to time?”

“No, he doesn’t care.”

“I would.”

“Yang, I’ve seen your room. No, you wouldn’t.”

 “I probably would about everything that can mould.”

“Technically you could mould if you died or got really sick.”

She playfully poked him in the rips and he laughed. His prosthetics pressed against her legs but she didn’t care, nor did she about hers. For some reason he made her forget about it. For some reason she almost felt like they actually got along in those moments, lying in bed together after sex, talking about nothing important at all.

And then there was always the moment when she started to feel like she was getting on his nerves. Like she was testing his patience too much. He never really said anything, never told her to leave, but each time she remembered what he was like before they had sex. His teasing, asshole self.

She sat up. “Are you gonna be at the party on Friday?”

“Which party? One of that blue haired guy?”

“Neptune. But no, some of Sun’s friends share a house and throw a party. Emerald must have told you.” She got up and tried to figure out where he had thrown her clothes. She found her underwear under the desk.

“Yeah, I think she did. I might show up.”

“Well, see you there then. Or before, depends.”

“I’ll call you up when the mould on my desk grows legs.”

She threw his shirt at him, but he just laughed.


	12. Chapter 12

“I could just make it randomly show the middle finger when you least expect it.”

“Don’t you dare.” Yang looked up. “Could you do that?”

“I would have to figure out how. Ask again in two years.” Ruby grinned at her. “Do you want me to?”

“No, I’m serious, don’t you dare. I will come for you.”

Ruby laughed and continued to work on Yang’s prosthetic again. She had been fascinated by it ever since. Yang would probably been able to maintain it herself, but it was easier to do with two hands, especially with Yang’s non-existent patience, and Ruby was always happy to get her hands on it. “At least this is easier than getting that damn robot to do what I want.”

“How’s it going with that anyway?”, Yang asked. She was sitting on Ruby’s bed, looking up something on her phone while Ruby was busy with her arm.

“Don’t ask”, she groaned. “Almost ran into the wall yesterday. I feel like I would go insane if it wasn’t for Weiss.”

“Oh, how’s that?”

“She brings me coffee, says encouraging things.” Ruby didn’t even notice at first that she was smiling. “Tries to keep my motivation up.”

“That’s sweet of her. Speaking of which, do you know how her date with Neptune went?”

She didn’t want to know. Ruby always felt a slight pang in her chest when she thought about it. Probably it was just the fact that everyone around her seemed to get into dating so easily. Probably just that. “I don’t know”, she mumbled. “Maybe you should ask her.” She hesitated for a moment before she picked up her screwdriver again.

“Ruby Rose!”

“What?”, she shrieked and almost dropped everything. Yang was looking, no, staring at her. Something between her _I can’t believe you’re doing this_ and _I can’t believe I was right and I will never let you hear the end of it_ face.

“You have a crush on Weiss!”

“What?” Her cheeks were burning and suddenly the room seemed to be several degrees hotter. “I… I don’t even know, okay?” She stared at the prosthetic again, just so she didn’t have to look at Yang.

“I can’t believe it.” She could hear Yang getting up and suddenly she had wrapped her arm around her from behind, pressing her cheek against hers. “My baby sister has her first gay crush!”

“Oh, come on! I’m not gay and I’ve had crushes on women before.”

“But you didn’t tell me about the others so I ignore them.”

“I didn’t even tell you about this one either!”

“So you admit it?”

“Ooooh, I hate you!” Ruby buried her face in her hands. “I will never leave the room again.”

“No, don’t do that.” Yang ruffled her hair. “I’m the only one who knows and I will never ever tell anyone, I promise. You don’t have to be ashamed of it. Weiss is pretty and nice and you’re good friends.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly the problem.” Ruby sighed and leaned her head against Yang’s shoulder behind her. “She’s not even into women. Also this will just mess up our friendship. I like her, I really do. Not only… like that. I don’t want to lose that just because I’m not sure how exactly I feel about her.”

“You don’t have to straight up tell her, Rubes. Not if you don’t want to. And you can always talk to me about it.”

“I don’t even know what to talk about. It’s just… I like her around. I don’t want her to stop being around.”

Yang stroked the hair out of Ruby’s face. “It will be alright. It’s never as grave as it seems.”

“But I don’t want to be anxious around her as well. It’s enough that I’m anxious around almost everyone else.”

“Trust me”, Yang said. “She won’t know. You could wear a shirt with her face surrounded by pink hearts on it and she wouldn’t come to _that_ conclusion.”

“How can you be so sure about that?”

“Experience. Just experience. Not what you think.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.”


	13. Chapter 13

“So your sister works for Vanes Electronics now? Wow. Who did she kill to get that job?”

“She’s just that good.” Weiss shrugged and poured more syrup on her pancakes. “But maybe she can get me an internship later on.”

“Do you want some pancakes with your syrup?” He chuckled and it was hard for her to be mad at him for that comment. “But doesn’t your dad have his own company? Why not work there?”

She stared at her syrup for a moment. Sometimes she hoped people wouldn’t recognise her, or her last name, but how couldn’t they? It followed her wherever she went. “We don’t really talk”, she eventually said.

“Why’s that?”

She shrugged in an attempt to make it seem like she didn’t care. She knew he wouldn’t buy it. “My father is… well, either you do exactly as he tells or he will make you. I didn’t want to do what he wants, so he disowned me. Winter now pays for university and expenses.”

“Sorry to hear that.” He squeezed her hand for a moment. There was nothing romantic to that gesture, just comfort. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to feel differently about it, thought about how often she had imagined how he might grab her hand while they ate and talked. This was technically their third date and at the back of her head she knew they were supposed to move this forward in some way, but whenever she thought about reaching for his hand herself she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“I don’t regret it”, she said. Not _It’s alright_ or all the other phrases she usually used to cut a conversation like this off. “And I’m glad I have Winter.”

“I mean I don’t get to see my family really often. Flights are expensive. But they’re still there, it’s not the same.”

“I still have my friends. And now no one tells me what to do.” She shrugged, grabbing her fork. “I get along without him just fine.”

“And you get to let out your rebellious side for once.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I think you imagine that going down a bit differently than I do.”

“Oh, how so?” He leaned forward and bit his lip while trying not to laugh.

“Wouldn’t that rather mean… I don’t know, black clothes, piercings, rock music?”

“Are you describing Blake?”

“You are…”

He started to laugh and she couldn’t help but to join in.


	14. Chapter 14

“What are we doing here again?”, Mercury asked, arms crossed in front of his chest and not even hiding the fact that he’d rather like to be anywhere else but here.

“One of Blake’s friends is doing… that.” Yang made a gesture towards the half naked woman rolling around the floor in front of them. “That’s why.”

“It’s art, you’re probably not supposed to understand that”, Weiss said. “Just look at it and… whatever. Look at it and pretend you know what you’re doing.”

“But that might give them the idea this is actually worth anyone’s time.” Mercury raised his eyebrows.

“You don’t have to make them feel bad about what they’re doing!” Weiss crossed her arms in front of her chest, mimicking Mercury’s pose without being aware of it.

“I mean… isn’t feedback important to improve yourself?”, Yang said.

“Thank you!” Mercury grinned.

“Now you’re both going against me? Amateurs, both of you.”

“Oh, don’t be salty about it.” Yang wrapped her arm around Weiss’ shoulders. “You know that I love you.”

“But right now she loves me a bit more”, Mercury said.

“Oh, shut up.” Yang pinched him in the rips and he laughed.

“Don’t laugh, I think this is supposed to be serious”, Weiss said.

“Let’s get a coffee”, Yang said and Mercury followed her without a word.

They left the small courtyard and went back inside. There was a small buffet on a folding table, homemade cake and coffee in thermos flasks. “I’m just glad Blake doesn’t do stuff like that”, Yang said and poured coffee into two plastic cups. “I mean I get why she always tries to get as many friends as possible to go to events like this one, they’re doing the same for her. But still. Sugar? Milk?”

“Sugar, I don’t trust that milk.”

“Yeah, probably a wise choice.”

“What do you think, how long will that take?”

“At least another hour according to what they said on the invitation.” She handed him his coffee.

“Long enough to disappear for a bit.”

“You are insufferable”, she said, but she laughed and he just waggled his eyebrows, his smirk a bit warmer than usually.

They went back to the courtyard. Weiss was still trying to pretend she understood what was going on, Emerald and Blake were still gone. They had headed to the restrooms about ten minutes ago, probably making out right now.

They leaned against the wall next to each other, sipping their coffee and for the first time Yang thought about the fact that she actually seemed to feel comfortable in his company outside the bedroom.

The artist, now fully naked, reached for a bag of fake blood and poured it all over her while letting out high pitched screams. Mercury flinched next to her. He didn’t seem any different when Yang looked at him, just… more serious and somehow tensed. For a moment she felt like touching him, but she didn’t dare to.

“Enjoying the show?”, Blake suddenly said next to her. Her hair looked a bit ruffled.

“If I didn’t love you…”, Emerald said, moving to Mercury’s side and leaning her head against his shoulder. For a moment Yang tried to figure out if all those moments between the two of them were just how they acted around each other or meant as comfort, spotting signals only the two of them would ever notice.

Blake leaned in close to Yang. “So you didn’t rip each other’s throats?”

“Not yet.” Oh, if Blake only knew. “Did you expect that?”

“You didn’t seem to get along very well.”

Yeah, until they started to have sex regularly. “Maybe that just changed.” She shrugged. “Wanna grab some dinner when this is over?”

“Or right now? I don’t think I can stand this any longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the next chapter is going to be a long one...


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapters were a bit shorter than I'd like them to be, so here's a long one for you. Hope you like it. 
> 
> Trivia: That first Mercury scene in this chapter was originally supposed to be the first scene of the story.

“Everything I’m saying is that it shouldn’t make a difference. Alcohol is alcohol, isn’t it? So why not mix it and make a big alcohol incest party in my cup.”

“Yang, never refer to my drink as an incest party ever again.” Emerald shook her head and took the drink Yang had mixed her. “But I never get a hangover when I stick to just wine.”

“The problem is not mixing it, love, the problem is drinking the hard stuff at all.”

“But if I mix the hard stuff with juice… shouldn’t it have the same effect as wine according to your logic?”

“Ask Pyrrha, she’s the med student.” Yang took a sip of her own drink. “But right now the hangover seems totally worth it because I will not make it through this night sober. Not with that music.”

They made their way through the crowd back to the others. Blake was stuck in a very heated discussion with Sun, no way to tell if she was just invested in the topic or actually about to scratch his eyes out. Yang and Emerald sat down on the sofa. The music was horrible, everyone around them seemed to be drunk and Yang didn’t even know what to do with the evening. Getting drunk? Yeah. Dancing? No one else was dancing, so probably not. Spending an evening with her friends? But that would have worked just fine anywhere else. She sighed and took a big sip of her drink.

 

* * *

 

“We’ll be late”, Ruby said.

“It will be alright.” Weiss was shivering, even though they walked pretty fast. It was November and already freezing cold. “At least your robot finally works.”

“Yeah, let’s just hope everything works out next week.” She looked at Weiss, a bit too long. Talking to Yang had probably not changed anything about how she felt towards Weiss. She knew it didn’t. But it made it more obvious to herself and now she couldn’t stop thinking about her silky hair and soft hands. She bit her lip and forced herself to look away.

“I’m sure it will.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She shrugged. “So Sun’s friends live in this house?”

“Some people he knows through his job. Neptune says they’re alright.” Weiss smiled at her and Ruby felt like going home. Neptune, of course. She shouldn’t be jealous. Neptune was nice. But she didn’t know how.

 

* * *

 

Every party eventually reached a point where it got unbearable for everyone who was still sober. People making out with each other in the most embarrassing ways, drunk sex in the hallways and someone always vomited somewhere.

Mercury never drank at parties.

“Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”, Emerald whispered into his ear while hugging him tightly.

“Em, please put your shirt back on.”

“No, don’t be such a prude.” She giggled and he had to wrap his arms around her so she wouldn’t stumble. “I will now go home with my girlfriend and we will have the best sex ever.”

He sighed. The only thing she would probably do was falling asleep as soon as she got home. If she made it home. “Is she as drunk as you are?”

“You’re cute when you’re worried.” She kissed his cheek and looked at him. “No one else ever worries about me.”

“Oh no, Em, no no no. We’re not going there today.” He took the red cup out of her hand. “You are loved by many people and if you start to cry now – come on.” He sighed as she buried her face into his chest and started to sob. “Let’s find your girlfriend.”

“I don’t want her to see me like this. Maybe she will break up with me because I’m too complicated.”

He patted her back. “No, she won’t. I paid her not to.”

“You don’t even have money.”

He sighed. “That was a joke, Em.”

He walked in on one couple having sex (and didn’t feel remotely sorry) before he found Blake in another bedroom. She was lying on the bed with Yang. Yang of all people.

“Your girlfriend is crying”, Mercury said. He made Emerald sit down on the bed and took his sweater off. She let him help her put it on without protest. “And she’s so drunk you shouldn’t leave her alone.”

Blake sat up and wrapped her arms around Emerald who at least had stopped crying now. At least Blake seemed almost sober. “I should bring her home”, Blake said. “But I can’t leave Yang alone.”

“Indeed you can’t”, Yang said, still lying on the bed.

Mercury sighed. “I can stay with her.” Leaving Emerald’s drunk friends alone at a party would sure as hell count as not treating them properly.  

“No, I don’t want to make Blake leave because of me”, Emerald sobbed into her girlfriend’s shoulder. “I am so sorry I am such a mess.”

“I’ll better bring her home.” Blake stroked Emerald’s back, softly kissing her temple to soothe her. “It’s alright, okay?” She looked at Mercury. “Just make sure Yang doesn’t leave the room. Stop her from getting into a fight with Cardin again.”  

“I don’t know why I should stop her.”

“Because I will get expelled.” She sat up. “And I am drunk. I don’t know if I can keep myself from breaking his nose again as soon as I see him. And it will be so worth it.”

Well, she certainly hadn’t told him that story before.

Blake rolled her eyes. “Just don’t let her get out until Cardin is gone, okay? He will pretty likely get some girl to go home with him soon and then you can let her go.”

“I should stop that poor girl from ruining her life.”

“If she sees him and decides to beat him up again I can’t stop her.” Blake shrugged. “You’re the better choice anyway.”

“I don’t want Blake to leave me”, Emerald sobbed.

“She won’t leave you, Em. She’s too lazy to get herself a new one.”

“Idiot”, Blake said and got up, still wrapping her arms around Emerald to support her.

“Sure you’ll be alright?”, Yang asked.

“I’m barely tipsy because you drank from my cup the whole evening.”

“Text me once you’re home safe.”

And then she was gone and he was alone with Yang. He sighed and dropped on his back, stared at the ceiling. Maybe he could fall asleep and wake up when everything was over. He closed his eyes.

“Do you want to know why I beat up Cardin Winchester?”

His eyes shut open again. She was looking at him, her shirt hugging her figure in all the right places and golden locks falling down on her shoulders. She was beautiful, he had no shame in admitting that. After all he slept with her. Cardin probably hit on her. Probably slept with her and dumped her afterwards. Tried to hit on her and got denied. He tried not to think about which option would actually bother him. “No”, he said.

“He told everyone he had sex with me”, she said. “And that would have been rude in itself, but I didn’t even sleep with him. So I confronted him and punched him, I got some bruises, he got a broken nose. With my left fist, don’t let anyone tell you I used the right one. His nose lost against pure flesh and bone.”

“Yeah, I’m proud of you.” He laughed. “Having casual sex is such a terrible thing to do, god forbid someone accusing you of that.”  

“Now everyone thinks I’m a sex monster and I shouldn’t care but…”

She fell silent and Mercury knew that he should say something. Anything. “Guess that sucks”, he said in a hopeless attempt to be social for once. Not that he usually really bothered around her. “But I mean you’re somehow a monster in bed after all.”

“A monster?” She threw a pillow at him, it caught him off guard. “Want a drink?”

“I don’t drink.” He crossed his arms behind his back.

“You were drunk when I first met you.”

“I don’t drink at parties. Too many people. It’s stressing me out enough already. I had been at Emerald’s place before I found you on the stairs.” He didn’t even know why he admitted that. Not that he usually cared to bond with her any further than making her scream underneath him.

“I drank too much”, she groaned.

“At least Cardin’s nose is safe that way.”

“I could still punch him.”

He sighed. “Yang, he’s not worth it. Not your time and not mine. Don’t make me stop you.”

“Why did you even come here when you don’t enjoy it at all?”

“Because I knew Emerald would get drunk and I don’t trust you to take care of her.”

“Oh my god.” She sat up and her looking that excited couldn’t mean anything good. “You really care about her, that’s so cute.” Before he was able to stop her she laid down next to him, resting her head on his chest and wrapping her real arm around his chest

“Yang, no, stop”, he said a bit helpless.

“That’s so adorable.”

He sighed. “Yeah, great fun, no need to get this close.”

“Want me to-“

“No, I don’t care.” He sighed. He had slept with her after all. No surprise he didn’t mind her being close. A strictly physical thing. “Just don’t get all sentimental.”

 

* * *

 

“You alright?”, Neptune asked.

“Yeah.” Weiss stared at her cup. She already felt like she was getting sick and she had barely taken a sip. “Is Ruby okay?”

“I don’t think she has anything to worry about here. But she’s with Sun, he will not leave her side. Do you want to check on her?”

“No, I’ll trust you with that.” She wasn’t worried about her getting hurt in some way, but she just knew how anxious Ruby could get in situations like these. She felt bad for leaving her to talk to Neptune. “It’s just a bit crowded in here.”

“We can go outside for a moment if you’d like.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think that would be great.”

She left her cup inside. She didn’t feel like drinking anything right now. He offered her his coat without making a big fuss about it and she gladly took it. It was too cold for any guests to leave the house except those who smoked close to the door. They sat down on a bench in front of the house, far enough from everything.

“Those parties can get a bit wild”, he said.

“I think I’m just not in the mood for it today. It’s been a long week.” She didn’t even know what she was saying anymore. Just mindless phrases. The truth was that her whole week had consisted of Neptune. Looking forward to their date, going on that date, thinking about the date, looking forward to see him here, now sitting with him on a bench and she had no idea why it felt that exhausting. She liked him, she really did. She felt comfortable around him. But not when she thought about this too much.  

“Are you cold?”, he asked and wrapped an arm around her. It took her a moment to realise what a romantic gesture it was. It didn’t feel romantic.

She turned her head. His face was right in front of hers and she couldn’t manage to feel anything apart from being nervous. If she didn’t do it now, when would she? She moved a bit forward, trying to keep her heart from pumping too fast in her chest. He moved closer. She flinched away.

“Sorry”, she mumbled, staring at her shoes. Why couldn’t she just pull through with it? She had thought about this, not often, but she had, and everything she would have needed to do was to wait for him to kiss her.

It just didn’t feel right.

“Let’s go for a walk”, he said after what felt like an eternity.

She nodded. His coat felt heavy as she got up and followed him. It felt like the neighbourhood was slowly falling asleep the further away they got from the party. “Weiss”, he said, hands buried in the pockets of his pants and shoulders crouched forward. “Do you actually like men?”

She stopped. Stared at him. She wanted to say yes, but she almost choked on that word. “What do you mean?”, she asked instead.

“Don’t get me wrong.” For a moment he almost seemed helpless. “I just… never got the feeling you really were _into_ me. And maybe it’s just about me, but you asked me out and…” He ran his fingers through his hair.

“I do like you”, she said as if she had to defend herself before she could think about it. She should have made it more clear. She should have kissed him on that stupid bench. She should have-

“I’m not sure if I like women”, he said. Looked away. Shrugged as if it was nothing.

She sat down on the pavement, pulled her knees to her chest. It should have hurt more, but she felt like all her feelings had poured out of her and everything left was the thought that something was really, really wrong.

He sat down next to her. For some reason it felt good like that. Or maybe not good, but better. She had spent so many hours picturing a future with him, but she wasn’t even sure which part of that thought had allured her so much anymore.

“I don’t know”, she said eventually. “I never… thought of it that way.”

“I think… when you asked me out I thought if I can’t fall in love with that girl, I can’t fall in love with any other. I’m sorry, it sounds like I was using you and I… it was not that. Are you mad?”

She shook her head. “I’m just… it all feels a bit…” Unreal? Strange? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything. “I don’t even know how you’re supposed to know that.”

“I don’t know. I never allowed myself to think about any… men that way.”

“I was always so focussed on finding a boy to date.”

“But you had doubts?”

“Yeah, but… I didn’t let myself believe that.”

He pulled her into a hug and she leaned her head against his chest, closed her eyes. It was what she had dreamed of for so long, but now it didn’t felt like anything other than a comforting hug from a friend.

If she was brutally honest with herself it was the first time the thought of her relationship with Neptune didn’t stress her out.

“I don’t even know what to do now. You have to tell people and then deal with all of it and… I’m not ready for that.”

“Weiss, this is not a wedding. You don’t have to make a list. You don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to.”

“But what am I supposed to do then?”

“I can’t tell you. I don’t even know myself to be honest. But I guess we can talk to each other about it. Have more coffee dates.”

She looked up to him. “Well, I assumed we would.”

 

* * *

 

“Did I ever tell you how soft your hair is?”, she mumbled against the skin of his neck.

“Did I ever tell you you’re drunk?”

“You shouldn’t have let me drink the rest of the bottle.”

Mercury sighed and pulled Yang’s arm a bit away from his throat before she could choke him. It was no problem for him to carry her on his back, but she was not exactly making it any easier for him.

“I want to touch your hair”, she said. “But I don’t want to fall down.”

“You have touched my hair before.” And her not moving was a damn good idea while he carried her down the stairs.

“Can I touch your hair later?”

He sighed. “Sure.”

He wouldn’t have thought it was possible but the party had gotten even worse. He just wanted to go home and he was glad that with getting Yang home safely and Emerald being home with Blake already he had no reason to stay around any longer. For a moment he wondered when he had even started to care about Yang at all, but she interrupted that thought pretty quickly herself.

“Let me down!”, she growled.

“You’re drunk, you can’t walk as fast as me anymore. I’m not patient enough for that tonight.”

“He’s there. Let. Me. Down.” She tried to get down herself and gave him no other choice than letting her down. He still wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Who is there?”

“Cardin.”

Oh no. Not that. “You can cut his throat another day”, he said. “We’ll just go home.”

“But he’s here now!” She tried to pull him forward. “That asshole!”

“You’re too drunk and I’m not having that right now. Deal with him when Blake didn’t assign me as your babysitter.”

“Don’t ever call yourself my babysitter again, that’s too kinky.”

“Damn it, Yang.” He sighed and pulled her close while they walked towards the door so she wouldn’t be able to escape him. “You’re horrible when you’re drunk.”

“You are horrible when you’re sober, which one’s worse?” She let him pull her through the crowd, but she still stared at Cardin who currently seemed to hit on a poor brunette.

“But you still want me. Which leads us to go home right now.”

“Only parts of you.” She still had no choice but to let him pull her towards the door, too drunk to resist. But it didn’t stop her from using her voice. “Cardin!”, she yelled through the whole room, right between two songs, loud enough for him to hear her.

Of course he did hear her. Turned around and looked at her, smug smirk on his lips. Mercury didn’t even deny that he was probably not any better than him, but he also didn’t consider himself a good person, nor someone with moral integrity, so he didn’t really care. He did though care about getting out of here as soon as possible.

“Yang, my darling!”, Cardin said as he approached them, now standing right between them and the door. “Seems you found yourself a new fuck buddy.”

“Don’t confuse your wet dreams with reality, Cardin”, she growled.

The only true tragedy was that if Mercury hadn’t been assigned to get Yang out of here without getting hurt or killing someone, though the latter was way more likely, this would have been so much fun.

 “Did you know she broke my nose?”, Cardin said, now looking at Mercury. “Be careful with that one.”

“I guess everyone here would be able to break your nose”, Mercury said.

“Hey!” Yang pinched his side.

“Be careful what you say”, Cardin said. He tried to look threatening, but it was only as threatening as a turtle trying to eat his shoe would have been. Sometimes this whole college thing had something endearing to it. Lots of innocent kids thinking a broken nose was the worst thing that would ever happen to them.

“Don’t touch him or I will break more than just your nose”, Yang said. It was probably the most adorable thing she had ever done. Actually believing _he_ would ever need _her_ protection.

Oh, sweet innocence.

“You can do that later, we’ll leave now”, he said before he could get lost in nostalgia and thoughts he usually managed to push aside quite well. He just shoved Cardin aside and pulled her towards the door.

“I can still punch that smug smirk out of his face”, she said. “I don’t want to walk, can you carry me again?”

“If you promise not to punch anyone.” He let her climb on his back again. They’d be faster like that anyway.

“I don’t even want to punch him”, she mumbled. “Just threaten him. Last time was an accident, he stumbled and I thought he was attacking me.”

“I’m proud of you.” Her hair tickled his neck. He had somehow gotten used to it.

The truth was that she wasn’t the first woman he had slept with more than once. But with every other girl there had always been the point where she had wanted more and he had wanted to run. He didn’t need a girlfriend. He didn’t even need another friend. He was in for the fun, not more.

Sometimes he wondered when he’d reach that point with her. If he’d reach that point with her or if they would just end up growing bored with each other.

She fell asleep before he reached the dormitory. He somehow managed to open the door without waking her up. He didn’t have a key to her room though, so he knocked, hoped her roommate was home and didn’t care whether he’d wake her up or not.

The ginger one opened, blinked at him with tired eyes. He definitely woke her up. “Oh, Yang”, she said. He knew he had seen her before, but he didn’t remember her name. She let him inside, the room still looked like something had exploded inside.

“She’s just drunk”, he said. She helped him to lay her down on the bed.

“Thanks for bringing her home.”

He shrugged. Ginger took off Yang’s shoes. “Good night”, he said.

“See you, Merc.”

Well, she did remember his name. He should find out hers before someone noticed how little he cared.


	16. Chapter 16

“I am so hungover”, Yang whined. “I will never drink anything ever again.”

“Drink the water”, Ren said. “Most of your symptoms are caused by dehydration.”

“But I feel so sick already.” She took another sip from the bottle he had brought her.

“You’re so brave”, Nora said sarcastically while patting her back. She was sitting next to her on Yang’s bed, watching her boyfriend finally cleaning their room.

“How did I even get back home?”

“Mercury carried you on his back. You looked kinda cute together.”

Yang threw a pillow at Nora. She didn’t need any side remarks on her affair right now. “Blake told him to take care I wouldn’t beat up Cardin before she left to take Emerald home. I think we met Cardin anyway.”

“Did you beat him up? That guy deserves it.”

“No, Merc dragged me outside. Can I have more painkillers?”

“You already had as many as you’re allowed to take”, Ren said. “Do you ever clean your room?”

“Sometimes”, Nora lied. “Just last week.”

“I can tell when you’re lying, Nora.”

“But you still love me, don’t you?”

He sighed and continued to shove piles of clothes into a bag. They had told him that some piles were freshly washed, but he didn’t believe them.

“Go take a shower, Yang”, Nora said. “You’ll feel better, trust me.”

“You know, other people might take that as an insult.”

“But you too still love me.”

 

* * *

 

So this was her first day as a non-heterosexual woman. It felt less spectacular than she had expected. She still wasn’t even sure how it actually felt like, just… weird when she thought about it and just like before when she didn’t.

She didn’t even have anything to do to distract herself. The room was clean, all homework was done, Blake had spent the night with Emerald and was probably still there. She stared at her phone until she couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to talk to someone.

She didn’t dare to consider if this was a good idea or not until she knocked at Yang’s door.

It was Nora who opened. “Hey, Weiss! Wanna come in?”

“Actually I wanted to talk to Yang. Is she here?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and tried not to seem as nervous as she was.

“I’m here!”, Yang shouted from inside. “Come in!”

“I meant… alone.” Weiss remained in the doorway as Nora sat down on Yang’s bed. Ren was busy cleaning the room, something that had been necessary for a long time. Yang sat next to Nora on the bed with wet hair.

“I’ll just grab my coat”, Yang said, a bit more serious. Weiss bit her lip. Had she been that obvious?

Yang really just grabbed her coat, pulled the hood over her wet hair and left the room without any questions asked. She wrapped her arm around Weiss’ shoulders as they walked through the corridor. “So, where do we go?”, she asked.

“Grab some coffee and have a walk?”

“Sure.”

They didn’t talk on the way there. The silence was thick, numbing, but Weiss knew that the only reason Yang didn’t ask was that she didn’t want to push her and that thought was so comforting it hurt. She couldn’t help but to think about the day she had had coffee at this very same coffee shop with Neptune.

They sat down on a bench outside, for a couple of minutes just sipping their coffee and watching strangers passing by until Weiss finally brought up the courage to speak.

“What if I was gay?”

Yang almost choked on her coffee. Weiss almost dropped hers, waiting for her to just _say_ something. Yang coughed, gasped for air, tears streaming down her face and it took Weiss a moment to realise she was laughing.

“Sorry”, she said between coughs. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t… expect that.”

“That was not the reaction I expected either”, Weiss mumbled, staring at her hands.

“Oh, Weissy, I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arm around her shoulders again and pulled her into a hug. “I just… I don’t know, what did you expect me to-“

“What _would_ I expect you to do, this is a hypothetical question.”

“Yeah, sure. What _would_ you expect me to do? I mean my best friend is dating a girl and I’m not straight either, so… I’m happy you figured it out. I can throw you a party if you want me to.”

“Stop making fun of me.”

“I’m not making fun of you!” Yang sighed and kissed her cheek. “To be honest I’m not just surprised you said that right now, not so much about you saying it at all.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I mean you’ve always been very flustered once one of us undressed in front of you.”

“Sometimes I really, really hate you”, she said and leaned her head at Yang’s shoulder.

“So how did you figure it out?” Yang stroked her arm and somehow it was actually comforting.

“I just thought I was picky when it came to dating men. Then I tried to date Neptune and I like him but it was just… well, not there. Then Neptune straight up asked me and made me actually think about it that way for once and it all just… made sense.” She sighed. “I don’t know what to do now.”

“I can still throw you that party if you want to. But apart from that just… try to get comfortable with it, okay? Talk to me whenever you’d like. Talk to people you feel comfortable talking to about it. Honestly, the more you get used to it the less of a big deal it becomes.”

Weiss sighed. Hearing it from Yang like that, with such confidence, made it seem like less of a big deal already. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” She grinned. “I mean after all I consider myself-“

“No, Yang. Don’t you dare!”

“-punsexual!”

She couldn’t help but to laugh anyway and she knew she would later regret it. Yang had made that joke too many times. It had already been cringeworthy the first time. But somehow joking about it also felt relieving.

“But let’s get one thing straight about you, Weiss…”

“You are ruining the moment!” She pressed her hand on Yang’s mouth. “Don’t you dare!”


	17. Chapter 17

Yang wasn’t asleep, but neither really awake. Mercury had buried his face in her neck, his hand still entangled with her hair. She wasn’t even sure when they had started to cuddle after sex, but this was the first time he had actually fallen asleep and she was definitely too comfortable to get up. His slow and steady breath against her skin, his arm lying heavy on her chest, somehow soothing. The touch of his metal prosthetics against her thighs pleasantly familiar.

Then the door shut open and she was suddenly very, very awake. She would have sat up if Mercury wouldn’t have kept her down and probably that was a good thing as well because she was also very, very naked.

So this was how she would finally meet Mercury’s roommate. In all her naked after sex glory.

“Hey, Merc”, the guy said while she tried to pull the blankets up to cover her.

“Stop panicking”, Mercury groaned, not moving an inch. “He’s blind.”

“Oh.” Well, at least the ‘nothing on the floor’ rule made much more sense now.

“I’m Fox”, his roommate said while getting rid of his shoes. She probably would have noticed if she had looked at his eyes, but he moved around like he knew where everything was. Well, he probably did. “You didn’t tell me you’d have someone over, did I interrupt you?”

“No.” Mercury finally moved and rolled on his back, eyes still closed.

“I’m Yang”, she said. She wasn’t sure if his roommate being blind made this less awkward or even more.

“New girlfriend?”

“Shut up”, Mercury growled. “How about you knock next time?”

“How about you remember to put your damn socks on.” Fox sat down at his desk and opened his backpack. “Do you have any idea how loud his legs are on the wooden floor? I wake up every time he gets up if he doesn’t wear them.”

“I think I have an idea.” She chuckled and Mercury softly nudged her with his elbow.

Yang sat up. It was awkward, but after all she didn’t have a problem with being naked around Mercury and Fox couldn’t see her. Her underwear had somehow ended up at the end of her bed.

“You don’t have to leave because of me”, Fox said. “I can put headphones on.”

“I have to go anyway. Dinner with my sister.”

“Well then see you around maybe. If Mercury is lucky enough to see you again.”

“Maybe if he buys me flowers.”

Mercury’s only response was to throw her shirt at her.

 

* * *

 

Dinner with her sister meant sitting on Ruby’s bed and eating pizza. Emerald was on a date with Blake, so they had the room for themselves. As much as Yang loved her friends, sometimes it was nice to be alone with her sister.

“Do you want me to ask?” Yang smirked.

“Please don’t. Right now I just wait until it’s over.”

Yang sighed. She wished she could tell Ruby that Weiss was not as straight as she thought, but she hadn’t even told Blake. This was the kind of secret she had to keep under all circumstances. “Maybe it will be over soon.” Sure as hell not.

“I invited her for Christmas though. Not because of that, just… I mean who else is she supposed to spend it with? I hope dad doesn’t mind.”

“I think he already assumes she’s coming as well. He loves her, he would never say no.” She took a sip from her coke just to be able to look away for a moment. She had hoped she could get away without talking about Christmas for a bit longer. She hated lying to Ruby.

“Do you know what Blake and Emerald will be doing?”

“They thought about visiting Blake’s parents, but flights are expensive over Christmas and Blake didn’t want to ask them to pay for it, so they’ll do that early next year. Blake just said they want to do something romantic, so probably just lots of food, lots of candles, lots of sex. Jaune invited them because Ren and Nora will be staying with his family over the holidays anyway, but they preferred their private celebration.”

“Sounds nice. I mean I would have invited them as well because I don’t want them to have to spend Christmas on their own but if that’s what they want…”

“Anyway, did your robot work out?”, Yang asked maybe a bit too quickly.

“Actually it did.” Ruby smiled. “Everything went fine, I’m so relieved.”

“I’m so proud on you, sis!” Yang forced herself to smile.


	18. Chapter 18

Sitting in a lecture with Weiss was never as nice as it promised to be, mainly because Weiss actually paid attention. Yang tried to, but macroeconomics was so not as interesting as Weiss pretended it to be.

Yang made some quick doodles of cute rabbits on her notebook. It always looked like a seven year old had drawn them, she had never managed a nice handwriting with her left hand. She looked at her phone to check how much longer she’d be stuck here. One new message. The distraction was too tempting not to open it.

It was from Mercury, send five minutes ago. _Lecture got cancelled, wanna meet up?_ She sighed. He had no idea what he was doing to her. This was way too tempting.

 _For sex? Where?_ , she texted back, just to keep him interested as long as she made her mind up. She looked up. She already had no idea what the math on the chalkboard meant.

 _Got the keys to my professor’s office, he’s on holiday_. Yang almost choked on those words. That was… nasty. Thrilling.

_Sure no one will run in on us?_

_I’m the one who’d lose his job._

After all she was weak. _Where are you? I’ll be outside in five minutes, math building_. She shoved her notebook back into her bag and wrote _Headache :(_ on the corner of Weiss’ notes before she got up and tried to leave the room without drawing too much attention towards her.

It took Mercury two minutes to show up. It felt longer in the cold rain. It wouldn’t take long until it would start to snow. “Professor’s, office, huh? That’s new.”

He just shrugged, lips curling into a smug smirk. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Oh, did you miss me?”

“Definitely missed your boobs.”

“And how did you get his keys?” They walked over the lawn. She had never been in the building he lead her into, but after all they had completely different majors.

“I work for him. He wanted me to sort through his notes while he’s away, but I got it done yesterday. No one will notice if we stay relatively quiet.”

“Do you think you’ll manage that?” She grinned. Knowing she would have sex with him in less than ten minutes was always exciting.

“I’m more worried about you.”

She poked him in the rips and he laughed.

There was always that small moment between them when something changed. Like a switch turned on and off. One moment they joked around like friends, the next he pinned her against the wall and kissed her so passionately she felt weak on her knees. He had learned how to press her buttons with every time she had been with him, knew how to tease her and how to bite the spot on her neck that always made her moan.

 

* * *

 

“Wanna grab some coffee?”, he asked while pulling his pants back up.

“Sure”, she said, staring at his bare back for a moment. Apart from noticing that damn, his body was definitely nice to look at, she asked herself if this was now normal between them. They had never had coffee together before if their friends hadn’t forced them to be around each other, nor anything else. Talks, sure, but only out of laziness, when both of them didn’t want to get up, but that almost counted as a part of the sex.

Coffee definitely did not.

For some reason she always felt cold and tired after sex. In a good way. She wrapped her coat around her even though it was warm in the small coffee shop. He looked tired too and she thought about the fact that he had more and more formed the habit of falling asleep after sex. He hadn’t done that in the beginning of… this, now more and more often. He paid for both their coffees and she couldn’t bring herself to laugh about the fact that to others that almost would have seemed like a date.

His hand brushed hers when he gave her her cup and for some reason if almost felt awkward. As if he hadn’t touched her everywhere else as well. But those touches were strictly reserved for somewhere else.

They sat down on two old armchairs in a corner and Yang finally felt warm enough to take her coat off. The small coffee shop was almost exclusively visited by university students and they had went a bit overboard with the Christmas decoration.

“Caramel syrup? I didn’t expect that.”

“It’s better than sugar.” He shrugged. “Definitely better than just plain coffee and milk.”

“It’s honest. Simple. Traditional. Whereas you’re finally showing off your sweet side.”

“That’s the greatest bullshit you have ever told.”

She laughed. “I could try to top that.”

“Have mercy.” He smiled, for a moment he didn’t even seem sarcastic. “Em says the same thing though. Since she’s with Blake she only drinks tea.”

“They’re so cheesy, sometimes I can’t believe it.”

“I blame Blake, Em has never been like that before.”

“Blake neither.” She shrugged. “But Emerald is nice, they’re happy, I’m not complaining.”

“As long as they’re not getting on my nerves too much during the holidays.”

Oh. The holidays. Yang tried to look at him like everything was alright. After all he wouldn’t have cared anyway, why was she even so worried about it? “So you’re gonna stay here as well?”

For a moment he seemed annoyed, as if she had said something incredibly stupid. “Yeah. I don’t give a damn about Christmas to be honest.”

She didn’t dare to ask about his family. They hadn’t touched that topic yet. “So why would Emerald and Blake bother you?”

“Because Em always feels like she can’t leave me alone for two hours.” He shrugged. “Christmas makes her sentimental.”

“Most people get sentimental about Christmas.” Which only made things harder for her.

“I don’t. Not at all. It’s cheesy, overly melodramatic and a ginormous waste of money. I don’t even want to think about the stress I’d have if I actually had to get gifts for people.”

After all it was a lot of stress, also because Yang always really tried to get something special for every single one of her friends. “You don’t get anything for Emerald?”

He shrugged. “I get her a voucher for the cinema or something like that, but only because no one else gets her anything. Well, now Blake does. But I can’t stop now without her thinking something’s wrong.” He shrugged and she quickly took a sip of her coffee so he wouldn’t see her smile about this. She now knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t like her acknowledging this even a tiny little bit, but it was endearing how much he cared about Emerald.

“That way at least I don’t have to get you anything”, she said jokingly.

“Well, I know a few things you could _do_ if you really want to get me a present.” His smirk made her laugh. 


	19. Chapter 19

Weiss was already sitting on her bed when Yang came back to her room.

Well, fuck.

“Nora let me in. She’s with Ren”, Weiss said, serious expression on her face.

“If you want to have another serious talk about my attitude towards my grades I-“

“It’s not about that.”

Yang took off her coat and shoes. “Are you alright?”

“I am so not alright, but this is not about me, it’s about you.” She took a deep breath. “I know I shouldn’t have done this and I am sorry but I read your texts.”

Yang froze. “Which texts?”

“The one you send during our macroeconomics class. The ones you send to… Mercury.”

Oh no. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “You probably got it the wrong way.”

“There aren’t many ways to get this wrong, Yang. Since when are you dating Mercury?”

“Holy shit, I’m not _dating_ him!” Yang sat down on Nora’s bed, running her fingers through her hair like she always did when she was nervous. “It’s just sex.”

“I… god, Yang. Sometimes I really can’t believe you.”

“Come on, we’re not kids anymore. People have sex. Sun and Reese have been-“

“Please spare my gay ears”, Weiss said, squinching up her face.

Yang couldn’t help but to laugh. She got up and pulled Weiss into a hug. “Oh, Weissy.”

“What was that for?”

Yang sat down next to Weiss, still grinning. “You’re joking about your sexuality, I’m proud of you.”

“This was by no means a joke, Yang, and stop distracting from the main topic.”

She was adorable. Voice scandalised as always, using her sexuality to shut her up. It was so Weiss, so _utterly_ Weiss, and Yang just wanted to ruffle her hair and squish her face. “It’s just sex”, Yang said eventually. “We both know that, we’re okay with it.”

“But what if he doesn’t treat you well? What if he hurts you?”

“There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. He’s not as much of an asshole as usually, actually we get along quite well.”

“But you’re not one for casual sex. You once dated a guy for three months because you couldn’t get yourself to break up with him, even though you weren’t even into him.”

“That was… different. I’m not stupid, Weiss. I know he won’t just suddenly fall in love with me, and actually I want it that way. He’s no boyfriend material. Just some… filler while I’m single and bored.”

Weiss shook her head. “Yang, I’m your friend and I can’t tell you what to do, but I don’t want you to get hurt, so my advice for you is to end this before it’s too late. I can’t force you, I won’t try to, and I’m here for you to talk, but please don’t let him hurt you.”

“I won’t.” She looked at her fondly. Of course she was worrying without any reason to, but Yang was still touched. Weiss tended to show affection without even wanting to. “But thank you.”

Weiss shook her head. “Don’t thank me, this is what friends do.” She always found a way to make everything sound like a task or duty.

“Please don’t tell anyone else. I don’t want Blake to know. It would just make things complicated because Mercury is Emerald’s best friend.”

“Of course I won’t.”

Yang smiled. “You’re a really good friend, you know that, right?”

Weiss looked away for a moment. “Sure.” Her voice almost sounded insecure. Sometimes Yang couldn't even find worst to describe how much she loved her. 


	20. Chapter 20

Christmas approached faster than Ruby had actually expected. She had been busy with university and distracting herself from thinking too much about Weiss. Which wouldn’t be easy with Weiss spending Christmas with them.

“Winter will pick us up in an hour”, Weiss said. “By then we should have everything ready.”

“I am ready!” Ruby shoved another warm sweater into her bag. “Almost.”

“What about Yang?”

“I’ll call her as soon as I got everything packed.”

“Great.” Weiss sat down on Ruby’s bed, wearing her business face, the one she wore when things had to get organised and done. Actually most of the time. Ruby loved it even more when Weiss relaxed for just a moment.

 

* * *

 

Yang pushed the inevitable, until Ruby called her herself. It took her a moment to finally pick up. “Hey, sis”, she said, trying to sound as miserable as she could.

“Hey, do you have anything ready? Winter will be here in half an hour.”

“Actually… I don’t think I’ll make it. I feel really, really sick. Horribly sick actually. Didn’t make it out of the bathroom for longer than ten minutes. I think I should stay here.”

“Oh no.” Ruby sounded seriously heartbroken and it broke Yang’s as well. “I can stay with you so you can get better soon.”

“No, no. Don’t come here, actually. You’ll just catch it as well. Go and see dad, have a wonderful Christmas and we will have our own celebration once I’m better.”

“But you’ll miss out on everything. It’s Christmas!”

Yang bit her lip. She was not making it any easier for her. “I know, but Blake promised to bring me soup and I’ll call you all the time, I promise. Send me pictures, okay?”

“I… okay”, Ruby said, truly sad. Yang felt like she was ripping her heart out of her chest and her own as well. She hated making Ruby sad. Hated it more than anything.

“Just have fun, okay? For me. Have a wonderful Christmas.”

“I will try. So… see you after Christmas.”

“Yes, have a lovely time!”

“I will send you many pictures. Please get well soon!”

And then the call she had dreaded for weeks was over, she was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to convince herself she had made the right choice while guilt burned her from the inside.

 

* * *

 

Winter’s tidy new car was almost intimidating. Ruby sat in the backseat, next to the luggage that they hadn’t been able to fit into the trunk.

“I don’t even know why Qrow hates the idea of pushing the honeymoon that much. The date is set, but I have this really important meeting and does it even matter?”

“Because as soon as he’s married to you he doesn’t want to share you with your work anymore?” Weiss shrugged, still looking at something on her phone. “I don’t know.”

“It’s not like he doesn’t work a lot, though. And he knew what he was in for, we can’t push the wedding date, I can’t push the meeting, why can’t he wait a couple of days?”

“He could, but he probably doesn’t want to.”

Winter sighed. “If I didn’t love this man…”

Ruby stared out of the window. The thought of Yang not being there with her still hurt. They had always spend Christmas together. It didn’t feel right to leave without her.

 

* * *

 

They arrived early in the evening. Taiyang opened the front door before they had all gotten out of the car, shortly followed by Qrow and Zwei. Ruby basically ran into her dad’s arms, both hugging each other tightly before she greeted Qrow just as enthusiastically. Zwei was jumping up and down until she finally got on her knees to let him lick her face.

It made feel Weiss incredibly awkward and she hated that. Winter went to pull Qrow into a kiss, their reunions definitely getting cheesier with each time Weiss witnessed them. Weiss didn’t know what to do, stood around and thought about just pulling out some luggage to keep herself busy, but before she could decide on doing that Tai approached her and pulled her into a bear hug.

“Glad you made it”, he said and the warmth of it was so unusual it almost made her uncomfortable. “But where’s Yang?”

“She wanted to call you, maybe she fell asleep.” Ruby got up, pressing Zwei against her chest. “She’s ill, some stomach flu. She said she wouldn’t survive the trip and just make all of us catch it as well.”

“Oh no, that’s horrible.” Tai looked seriously shook for a moment. “Does anyone look after her?”

“Blake’s still there”, Weiss said. “Emerald as well. They’ll make sure she’s alright.”

“At least that. I have to call her later.”

“I’m sure she just overate, she tends to do that”, Qrow said and Weiss was about to defend Yang before she realised he only said that to calm Tai down.

“And Blake is always overprotective of her, she’ll personally drag her into an ER if she thinks it’s necessary.” Weiss took one of her bags out of the car.

“Well, if you say so. Let me help you with the luggage”, Tai said.

 

* * *

 

The second time her father called she answered the phone. “Hey, dad”, she said. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”

“Are you alright?” He sounded worried, just like after the accident, and she bit her lip. “Ruby told me you have a flu. You know, that can be a dangerous, you should see a doctor.”

“Blake said she’d take me to the ER if it’s not better tomorrow.”

“Is she with you?”

“No, I send her away because I don’t want her to get sick as well. But I’m just sleeping and watching shows on the internet anyway.” She carefully applied her lipstick in front of the bathroom mirror.

“I really don’t like you having to spend Christmas alone.”

“It’s alright, honestly. If I need company I’ll just call someone. Maybe we can skype tomorrow?”

“Sure! Get some rest and make sure you drink enough, it’s important to stay hydrated.”

“Yeah, I’ll make sure of it. Have a nice Christmas, dad.”

“I will. Get some rest.”

“Bye, dad!”

She hung up and looked at herself in the mirror. She had tried to somehow updo her hair, but it had looked messy and now she had just loosely tied it in her neck, blonde curls falling over her right shoulder. She was wearing a black dress and a red blazer she had borrowed from Pyrrha, red lipstick and for a moment she thought it was too much, but too much was probably adequate for this occasion.

She put on her coat, slipped into black pumps and grabbed her bag before she left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, now the exciting part (at least for me) begins. Guess why Yang cancelled Christmas with her family! Also you'll absolutely get some super cheesy cute Christmas fluff with Ruby and her family, don't you worry!
> 
> Chapters 20-23 will also pretty likely be quite long. Depending on how things go. But oh my god am I excited to write this!


	21. Chapter 21

The restaurant was noble and despite her efforts she felt underdressed, painfully self-conscious. The waiter was probably considering just not letting her inside while he checked the reservations until he finally nodded. Another waiter took her coat before she was led to a small table in the corner, right next to the window. She was easily the youngest person in the room, and everything around her smelled like money and status, a society she had never grown familiar with. She wondered how it must have been like for Weiss to grow up like that.

The waiter asked her if she wanted to wait before he brought the menu and she nodded. For a long, long moment Yang thought she wouldn’t show up. Let her wait and send a lazy excuse a couple of hours later. Let her tell the waiter she had just blocked a table for nothing because no way she could even afford a glass of water here.

But after half an hour and telling the waiter she didn’t want to order a drink yet twice, she did show up. Walked through the door like she had never been gone at all and Yang nervously ran her fingers over her the metal hand she kept hidden under the table.

“Sorry, I got stuck in traffic”, she said while Yang got up. It wasn’t a real hug, just kisses into the air and her hands brushing Yang’s arms. She smelled like some expensive perfume Yang had definitely smelled somewhere before.  

“It’s okay”, Yang said and sat down again. She hesitated to call her mum, hesitated to just call her Raven, so she just avoided calling her anything at all. “How was your flight.”

Raven sat down and gave the waiter a sign to bring the menus. He hurried to do so. “Well, I got work done.” She opened hers. “I can’t drink tonight, do you want to order wine?” Yang shook her head. “So no wine list for us, but bring a bottle of water.” She waited until the waiter was finally gone, then she looked at Yang again. “How are your studies going?”

“Good”, she lied.

“You’ve lost a semester, did you manage to keep up?”

She didn’t dare to tell her that actually she was a year behind now. “I think I finally settled into this major”, she said instead.

“Well, I hope you did, you changed it twice.” Raven looked down at the menu again. Her dress looked as neat and expensive as everything about her. Yang had her wild curls, but Raven somehow managed to make them look soft and neat, something Weiss rarely ever accomplished. She felt like a cheap, improvised version of her mother and she hated it. Somehow she always managed to forget about this part of their encounters when she waited for the next one.

Her metal hand rested on her thigh and she didn’t dare to let her see it. Sometimes people started to behave weird when they saw it, and she had dreaded Raven’s reaction for one and a half year now. “Ruby’s pretty good, actually.”

“I know. No surprise actually. She’s just like her mother, talented and intelligent. You should try the lobster soup.”

It was weird to hear Raven praise someone like that, or even acknowledge their achievements. Yang tried to make sense of the words on the menu, tried not to feel so horribly hurt by it again, even though she didn’t even have any reason to. After all she had wanted this. She had agreed to meet her, today, the only day in almost two years that her mother had managed to spend some time with her, to even get into town. “I’m allergic to sea food”, she said, because she didn’t know what else to say. It was the wrong thing anyway.

“Then try the Carpaccio. I’ll make sure to tell the waiter so he lets the cook use a fresh pan.”

She wanted to tell her that she wasn’t _that_ allergic, but she just bit her tongue. She thought of something to say, something to start a conversation. She sometimes came up with so many late at night, but never when Raven actually called. She always blamed the fact that those calls never lasted more than ten, fifteen minutes, but why couldn’t she think of something now?

“Is everything alright, Yang?”

For a rare moment she felt like her mother was actually _looking_ at her. “Yeah, sure”, she said quickly, turning a page on her menu to keep her hand busy.

Raven reached over the table to lay her hand on Yang’s, kept it where it was. “So how have you been doing after the accident”, she asked, just like that. Few people even dared to talk about it. It felt like Raven was crashing through an invisible boundary at full speed, but at the same time it felt… relieving. Raven didn’t care about her boundaries, Yang had realised that a while ago, but no one ever asked and no one ever let her talk about it. She just wasn’t sure if Raven was the one with whom she wanted to talk about it. It had been one and a half year and she hadn’t visited her in the hospital, had paid for her prosthetic and waited months to even call her.

“I guess… fine. I healed well. The prosthetic is working fine. My handwriting is still crappy, though.” She didn’t really know what to say.

“And how do you feel?”

Yang wasn’t sure if there was serious concern on Raven’s face or if she was just seeing what she wanted to see. Her hand was still resting on Yang’s, almost holding it but she didn’t dare to call it that. She had wanted this for so long it almost felt uncomfortable now. “I think I’d feel better if everyone else wasn’t that sensitive about it. I can’t even mention it to my best friend because she’s freaking out every time she’s reminded of it. I mean… I already lost my arm, I want to at least make jokes about it.” It sounded stupid when said aloud.

“She can’t be uncomfortable with it forever.” Her voice sounded warm. She took her hand away. “Just do it, she will adjust eventually.”

But she didn’t want to put Blake through this again. Maybe Raven was right and she should have been more worried about herself than Blake, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how hard it had been for Blake, how much she had blamed herself. But she also didn’t want to fight with Raven. “Yeah, I guess you’re right”, she said instead of all that.

“Did you pick something to eat?”

“I need another minute.”

“Take your time.” She closed her menu. “Actually I came here to talk to you about something. It’s not going to take long, I promise.”

Yang stared at the menu, read the same word three times without understanding it. She tried to turn the words around in her head, to read anything into them but _I only came here because I need to talk to you about something, not to spend Christmas with my daughter_. She didn’t even know what she wanted to talk about anyway. Maybe it was her own fault she always just read the worst into everything Raven did because she always made her feel so anxious and insecure. “Sure.”

“Are you on good terms with Winter?”

She looked up. “We don’t really see each other often. She’s nice to me, so I guess… yeah. Depends. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean actually.”

“See, in my business it’s all about who you know. But you know Qrow and his little grudge against me, he probably told her god knows what about me. You have no idea how much you’d help me if you could put in a good word for me. Just so she even considers working with me. I really want to get a foot in the door of Vanes Electronics.”

Yang looked up. All of a sudden she didn’t feel insecure, just angry. Incredibly angry. At herself or at Raven, she wasn’t sure, neither did she care. “Did you only come here because you want me to talk to Winter so you can make her your business contact?”

“I wouldn’t phrase it that way.”

Yang closed her menu. “It’s Christmas!”

“I have a calendar, thank you very much for that information.”

“You made me skip Christmas with my family just because suddenly I’m good enough to help you out with something!”

“I didn’t make you do anything, I said I have the time to step by and asked you if you _wanted_ to meet up. You just could have said no if you wanted to spend Christmas with your father instead.”

“It’s not a choice if you…” She took a deep breath, tried to compose her voice. “You haven’t had time to meet me in one and a half year. Do you really expect me to say no when you finally call and say you have this one day you could step by? Do you think I’d just wait for the next opportunity in what, three years?”

“Yang, please. I wanted to see you. I was really busy, but I’m sure we can arrange these sorts of meetings more often in the future.”

“Know when you said that last time?” Her voice was loud now, too loud for this restaurant, but she didn’t even care anymore. “When we first met. Five years ago. Since then we’ve met exactly four times, including today. Actually I won’t count today because you only showed up because you want something. You don’t need to pretend to care anymore, let’s just keep it where it was before you even bothered to acknowledge I exist.” She got up.

“Yang, _please_!” The almost entreating sound in her voice made Yang even more furious. “Just sit down, let’s talk about this-“

“Just shut up. I’m done with this.” The other guests shot her disapproving glares as she passed by, but she just returned them twice as angry. The waiter was already holding he coat and she almost ripped it out of his hands. “Don’t expect her to tip”, she said as she stormed outside, the cold wind hitting the air and the anger out of her.

When the anger was gone and she walked through the snow she only felt exhausted and horribly weak. She stared at the Christmas decoration in the shop windows, the streets, and she knew she had made a horrible mistake. Her mother had made her let down everything that was important to her again, no, Yang had let her. Only because she couldn’t bring herself to say no to her mother.

She had once promised herself that Raven would never make her cry again, a moment of disappointment and anger. Of course she broke that promise tonight


	22. Chapter 22

Ruby’s home was so different from her own that Weiss didn’t know whether to feel insecure or comfortable. She was sitting on the couch next to Ruby, still full and tired from Christmas dinner, a cup of hot chocolate in her hands and Zwei sleeping on her lap.

Winter and Qrow had made themselves comfortable on the armchair. She was sitting on his lap, her head leaned against his shoulder, his arms wrapped around her tightly. Weiss wasn’t sure if Winter had fallen asleep, but they looked so close and happy she almost didn’t dare to look at them.

“I hope Yang is okay”, Ruby said. “Do you think I should call her?”

“She’s probably asleep.” Weiss still didn’t want to believe Yang was actually that sick. Not after the one time she had went to a party with fever and high on cough syrup. Did she just stay because… No, she would never do that. Maybe she was that sick after all.

Weiss just didn’t want to believe that Yang would stay at Beacon to have sex with Mercury.

“It’s so sad she’s missing out on this. We should get her some cake on our way back, if she can eat cake already. She didn’t sound like she’s able to keep much of the food to herself.”

“She’ll be alright”, Qrow said. “She’s the one to have a really bad cold for one or two days and then recover quickly.”

“Unlike Weiss.” Winter raised her head. “She’s always having a mild cold for weeks, but still not allowing herself to stay in bed longer than absolutely necessary.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m a child!”, Weiss said, but Winter only chuckled and kissed Qrow on the cheek.

Tai came back into the room, carrying a plate of cookies. “So, ready for singing Christmas carols?”

“Dad, we don’t do that, we’re not kids anymore.”

“Yang sings with me every year”, Qrow said. “She’ll sing everything after enough eggnog.”

“See?” Tai grinned and Ruby rolled her eyes until Tai gave her one of the cookies.

“Do you know how bad it is to eat carbs that late in the evening?”, Winter asked, taking a cookie as well.

“Don’t eat it then.” Qrow took the cookie out of her hands and broke it in two.

“Don’t you dare to eat my- Qrow, I swear to god, spit it out. No, don’t spit it out. I hope you choke on it.”

“No, you don’t.” Qrow grinned, stroked her cheek with the palm of his hand and gave her the other half.

Weiss could see how much Winter melted into the touch and it made her feel warm and uncomfortable at the same time. She put her mug on the coffee table and laid down on the sofa, resting her head on Ruby’s lap while trying not to throw Zwei down on the floor. There was always something soothing about Ruby in situations like these. In any situation. “Don’t get crumbs in my hair”, she said.

“I’ll try”, Ruby said.


	23. Chapter 23

She knew it would only get worse if she stayed by herself, so she clung to the only distraction she could think of. She had tried to dry her tears and make herself look presentable, had switched Pyrrha’s blazer with a yellow cardigan, the warm and soft one. It almost made her cry again.

She felt nothing but empty when she knocked at Mercury’s door. Maybe he wasn’t even home. Maybe he didn’t even want to see her. For a moment she wondered where the difference was between Raven only using her for contacts and Mercury using her for sex, but at least she was using Mercury as well and didn’t expect anything else. Like warmth, love and him caring in the slightest for her.

He looked tired when he finally opened. He wore jogging pants, a black shirt and his hair was a mess. “Did I wake you up?”, she asked.

“No. What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m bored, so I’m asking you if you want to have sex or not. So, do you?”

For a moment he looked at her like she had just said something incredibly stupid. He stepped back to let her in and closed the door behind her. The only light burning was the one on his bedside table, his laptop lying on his bed next to a pizza box. “Yang, what are you doing here?”

“I told you.”

“No, I mean _here_. It’s Christmas. Why aren’t you home?”

She bit her lip, stared at the black screen of the laptop. “I just didn’t want to, okay?”

“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a terrible liar?”

She took a deep breath. She knew if she said another word, anything, she’d start to cry again, and that was so not what she wanted. She just shook her head. For a moment he seemed annoyed, but then he sighed and picked up his laptop. “Do you want to sit down?”

“You don’t really want to-“ Her voice broke. She turned around, trying to blink away the tears.

“I don’t care if I watch a bad show on the internet or listen to whatever drama is going on in your life.” He put the laptop and the pizza carton on Fox’ bed and sat down on his. “Also your only other choice is to go to Blake who’s probably pretty naked right now and a sexually frustrated Emerald is the Emerald of my nightmares.”

She hesitated, then sat down on his bed. “I skipped Christmas with my family to see my mother, but she only wanted to see me because she wants something.”

“Are you cold?”

“No, why?”

“You’re shaking.” 

She was. She shook her head again, trying to rub her arms so it would stop. Trying to get rid of the helpless anger. It didn’t help.

“Come here.” He pulled the blanket back and patted on the space between him and the wall. She moved slowly, laid down next to him, turning her back towards him because she couldn’t bare him staring at her right now. He pulled the blanket over her and suddenly wrapped his arm around her waist. She almost flinched by the unexpected touch. But when he pulled her close, his chest against her back, and it actually felt comforting. Unusual, but in a way… good.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on his slow and steady breath. There was nothing sexual about this touch and maybe that was why it almost felt strange. But the shaking stopped and she finally felt warm again. “Never thought you were much of a cuddler”, she eventually said teasingly, but actually she didn’t want him to let go. She had never realised how good she could feel in his arms. Even without the sex.

“It’s the only thing that calms Em down when she has a meltdown.”

Somehow he managed to hide the good parts of him really well. “I’m so stupid”, she mumbled. “You know, she left me and my father only weeks after I was born. I didn’t even know until my stepmother died. And when I was seventeen my uncle told me how to contact her. Since then I just… wait for her to tell me she finally has time to meet me. Sometimes she calls, but it’s always brief. She’s a lawyer, working for different companies, not even really living somewhere, always busy. And I’m so stupid, I still let her do that. She tells me what to do and I don’t even think about asking questions, or saying no. I just… I haven’t seen her since before the accident.”

“When you lost your arm?”

“Yes.” She almost shyly touched his hand, then interlocked her fingers with his. She just didn’t want him to let go again. “I spend weeks in the hospital and waited for her to even just text something, but she didn’t. Didn’t show up, didn’t even call. I didn’t hear from her until my father told me she had paid for my prosthetic.”

“Just screw her”, he said. “She’s not worth it.”

“I still screwed up Christmas. Not only for me. Ruby was heartbroken, and I _lied_ to her, just to… I don’t know how I can ever make up for that. The worst part is that I can’t just… step by tomorrow because I can never ever tell them I dumped them to see my mother. Dad still thinks I don’t really care about her and I can’t hurt him like that. Bring back all this old pain. I can’t let them know I betrayed them like this. And I wouldn’t even know how to get there, I can’t drive, I can’t make anyone else drive me.”

“Just stop thinking about it for now. You’re upset. It won’t get you anywhere, because there’s nothing you can do right now.”

“I don’t know how.”

“So how are you going to use your new won free time?” His thumb brushed over the back of her hand.

“Sit in a corner and cry.”

“Yeah, we definitely have to work on that.”

She sighed. As long as he kept holding her everything was fine. “Do you mind if I take my arm off?”

“Why would I?”

“Everyone else does. But it’s more comfortable like that, like… not wearing jeans while lying in bed. But everyone else just freaks out. Like they pretend I still have two arms while I wear it and suddenly they have to realise that I don’t.”

“They probably do.”

She let go off his hand and he helped her to shove up the sleeve of her Cardigan. He waited for her to detach the prosthetic before he took it and placed it somewhere behind him. It felt weirdly intimate. He wrapped his arm around her again and she took his hand.

“You never told me about your family”, she said. “Or how you lost your legs.”

He took a deep breath and for a moment she thought she had overstepped a line, but he was still holding her hand. “You know Emerald. I don’t have family apart from her.” For a moment she wasn’t sure if he’d say anything else. “And about the rest… you don’t wanna know.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t-“

“Okay, let me rephrase. I don’t want you to know.” He sighed, his other hand playing with a strand of her hair. “You’re naïve. In a way you are. And somehow I envy you about it. I’m selfish enough for not wanting you to know. I don’t want to drag this into… this other part of my life. People are bad. People do horrible stuff to others. Worse than you probably imagine. I didn’t have a happy childhood, grew up between criminals in actually shady bars, my mother disappeared, my father died eventually and it was the happiest day of my life. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

She tried not to read too much into his words, of him considering her a part of his life now. He probably just meant college in general. “So both our mums left us.”

“Only that mine is not rich enough to pay for my fancy prosthetics. Or she is, I don’t know, I don’t care.”

“Who paid for yours then? Yours aren’t exactly the cheap ones as well.”

“Well, when something bad happens to you, rich people sometimes use you to buy a pure conscience. Not that I’m complaining, I have legs and no student loan.”

“You’re ruthless.”

He laughed, she could feel it vibrating against her back. “Yes, I am.”

“A bad, bad influence.” She smirked and stroked his hand with her fingertips.

“Is bad boy your new kink?”

“What do you think why I slept with you in the first place?”

“I thought it was because I let you inside.”

“Sure.” She pulled his arm closer. There would be a moment when she had to leave, but she didn’t want to. For a moment he had managed to make her feel less miserable, almost good, and she just hoped he wouldn’t throw her out just yet.

“Are you falling asleep?”, he asked.

“No, I’m not tired at all.”

“Want to watch another bad show?”

“Yes.”

He got up and for a moment she felt so cold without him near her. She rolled around and watched him while he picked up his laptop. “I have some cold pizza left.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

He reached her the pizza carton and sat down next to her, laptop on his lap, starting whatever he had been watching before he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close like it was something they used to do. She leaned against him and the cold pizza tasted better than everything she would have gotten in that stupid restaurant.

“I didn’t think of you as someone who just puts everything on his pizza. Onions, mushrooms, tuna?”

“Better than pineapple.”

“I like pineapple on pizza.”

“No, Yang , that’s just wrong. Really, really wrong.”

She laughed, his hand played with her hair again. Just him and her and for a moment he made her feel like it was everything she needed. She tried not to read too much into that as well.


	24. Chapter 24

When Weiss woke up she felt more like home than she ever had in her parent’s house. Outside the sun was rising, soft light floating the room, her bed was warm and Ruby slept peacefully in the bed next to her.

She didn’t want to get up and she knew how unusual that was for her. But she also didn’t care. So she turned around, closed her eyes again, but she also wasn’t tired anymore. She stared out of the window, then took a look on her phone. After a while she finally managed to make herself text Yang, getting off her chest what had been bugging her since yesterday. _Did you stay because of Mercury?_ , she typed and then finally pressed the Send button.

It didn’t take too long until someone knocked on their door. Ruby was usually not a morning person, not at all, but she immediately sat up. “Weiss!”, she shouted.

“I’m awake.” Weiss got up and put on a sweater over her nightgown.

“Are you ready to go downstairs?” Ruby grabbed her dressing gown and opened the door, too excited to wait for her.

Winter looked like she was about to head for work in five minutes. On casual Friday, but still. Black pants, blouse neat, hair and make up flawless. Whereas Qrow just looked like some homeless guy she had found on the street and brought home. Messy hair, unshaved, still in his pyjamas and resting his head on Tai’s shoulder because no way he would have gotten away with cuddling Winter while trying to fall back to sleep.

“Good morning!”, Ruby cheered. “And merry Christmas!”

“Yeah, merry Christmas, Qrow”, Winter said. “Wake up or you’ll miss everything.”

“I’m wide awake”, he mumbled.

“Can I get away with my present for you being a cup of coffee?” Tai grinned.

“A cup is barely enough.” Winter rolled her eyes. “He got more sleep than I did, why is he still that tired?”

“Because you’re not human, ice queen.” Qrow finally sat up. “Let the kids open their presents.”

“I’m not a kid anymore”, Ruby protested.

“I’ll start.” Winter got up. “Otherwise we won’t be done with this before lunch.”

“This is not a competition, Winter.” Qrow chuckled. Winter replied by throwing a wrapped package at him.

Ruby sat down on the floor, right next to the Christmas tree, and after hesitating for a moment Weiss joined her there. “I wasn’t very creative this yeah”, Winter said when she handed Ruby and Weiss a small package each, wrapped neatly in golden paper.

“Oh, how did you know!”, Ruby said when she opened hers and Weiss had no idea what she was looking at, something black that looked like one of the things that usually cluttered her desk. For a moment Weiss felt bad about her own present for Ruby, then she carefully unwrapped hers.

“Oh, is that…” She beamed and looked at the delicate silver necklace.

“Grandmother’s, yes. I didn’t wear it anyway.”

Weiss knew Winter had worn it day and night. She let her help to put the necklace on and could barely stop smiling.

Tai got Ruby some other electronic something she was very excited about, Winter a book with ice cream recipes (only Qrow laughed), Qrow a book with vegan low fat low carb recipes (only Winter laughed) and Weiss a thermos jug to take to university.

Ruby got Weiss a book and she wasn’t sure why she was surprised. “I loved it, I think I read it a hundred times”, Ruby said. “Not this one, I got you a new one.”

“Thank you.” Weiss smiled and felt even worse about her present. “I didn’t get you anything special”, she said when Ruby unpacked it.

“Oh, are those-“

“Boxes, yes”, Weiss quickly said because she felt like she had to explain it. “I thought you could use something like that for your desk. Plastic so you can wash all the motor oil off, in red because it’s your favourite colour.” It sounded so stupid.

“It’s perfect. I love it, thank you.” Ruby beamed at her and Weiss knew her too well to think she was only pretending to like it. Ruby was a horrible liar.

“And what did you get for Winter?”, Tai asked Qrow.

“That’s… for another day.” He winked and Winter’s face turned bright red. Weiss felt her cheeks burn as well and looked away, but then Ruby laughed and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. She felt better instantly.


	25. Chapter 25

She was still there when he woke up. Her head was resting on his arm and his hand felt numb, his face was full of hair and she had wrapped her arm around his waist tightly, keeping him close. He felt like it should have bothered him more, but her breath against his neck was somehow soothing and her body comfortably warm.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t _that_ bad to be cuddled by her.

He tried to at least free his arm, but she was not having it, only moving closer, and he didn’t want to wake her up. Waking her up would mean he’d have to interact with her and as little as he minded her sleeping next to him, he couldn’t deal with anyone before his first or second coffee. So he just closed his eyes again, burying his face in her hair because for some reason he liked the soft tingling of her curls against her skin, her scent.

After all she was beautiful. Not many men would mind her next to them. He had no idea why she was bothering to stick around, coming back to him again and again. Not like he was even trying to be nice. He knew she enjoyed the sex, he made sure of that, he knew he was attractive, but she easily could have had many nice guys.

Maybe bad boy was her kink after all.

He managed to fall asleep again, only to be woken up by her trying to climb over him. “Damn”, she hissed.

“Don’t step on my face”, he mumbled, his hand now coming back to life. He tried to move his fingers to get rid of the painful stinging.

“I could sit on your face if you want.”

“Only if you make me coffee first.”

She laughed and got out of the bed. He pulled the blanket over his head. “But really”, she said, voice all serious again. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Oh no, not this. He growled. “I don’t talk to people before I had coffee.”

For a moment she didn’t say anything. “I’ll get us coffee”, she said. So she got the message.

He couldn’t fall asleep again after she had left, so he took a shower instead. It didn’t manage to wake him up at all. He only put on pants and a sweater because he was cold, then let himself fall back down on his bed.

He wasn’t able to tell how long he had been trying to fall back to sleep, only because he didn’t know what else to do. He still flinched when she came back.

“Sorry”, she said. He didn’t open his eyes. “Are you asleep?”

“Even if I were, you’d just wake me up.”

“Yep, because it’s almost ten. Make space.”

He moved a little and she sat down next to him. “I brought coffee and breakfast.” She ran her fingers through his wet hair for a moment. “So you got up just to get back to bed?”

“Exactly.”

“Drink your coffee.”

He sighed and opened his eyes, sat up. She had showered as well, her hair was still wet, and she wore jeans with a red sweater she had taken off in front of him before. She gave him a mug and he took a sip. It was sweet and definitely not the best coffee he had ever had, but he wouldn’t be the one to complain.

“My mother called”, she said. “Yesterday, I left my phone in my room.”

He quickly drank more coffee. He was not ready for this conversation.

“I won’t call her back. Anyway, any plans for today?”

“Hitting on lonely girls, robbing old women with cats.”

“Didn’t expect anything else from you. I found some frozen croissants.” She pointed at the plate next to her on the bedside table. “I put them in the oven in case you wanted to ask.”

“I didn’t assume they’re that dark when you buy them.”

“I left them in the oven while I showered. I guess you can still eat them.”

It was probably just the caffeine finally kicking in but he couldn’t help but to smile. Sometimes she was just… adorable. He didn’t think that about people often, actually only ever about Emerald, but he also usually didn’t bother to stick around anyone else that frequently.

Also it was Christmas and maybe he was allowed to do stupid shit today.

“So this is your true and honest coffee?”, he asked, taking her cup and having a sip.

“Hey, this one’s not a good example.”

He laughed. “Yeah, probably. It tastes horrible.”

“Only because I made it and I’m not a coffee major.” She took her cup back. “At least no caramel macadamia soy syrup.”

“That’s not even a thing, why would anyone put-“

She pressed her hand on his mouth. “See, you know more about the syrup than I do.”

He rolled his eyes and took her hand away from his mouth, but didn’t let go of it. “Someone needs to cure you from your irrational distaste of caramel syrup.”

“Do you want me to lick if off your nipples or what did you have in mind?”

“I didn’t say I’d do it but if you’re into that, feel free to rip my shirt off.”

“Earn it.”

He smirked and slowly moved closer, kissing her neck so softly he barely touched her. She took a sip of her coffee like she didn’t care at all, but he knew it wouldn’t take long for her composure to crumble beneath his hands and lips. He didn’t know himself why he hadn’t grown bored of screwing her yet. It seemed like with every time he just wanted her more. Probably just because she actually was really, really hot. Probably just a sudden rush of ambition to make her moan again.

But in that exact moment someone knocked on his door.

They both flinched away, Yang almost choking on her coffee. “Yeah?”, Mercury shouted, moving again from her. Whoever that was, he only wanted to tell them to get the fuck out of here.

Well, it was Emerald, shortly followed by Blake. Oh, fuck.

“Yang?” Blake raised her eyebrows. “Here you are. We just wanted to ask Mercury to look for you with us. Ruby said you’re sick but you weren’t in your room.”

“I feel… much better. And now we’re having breakfast. I didn’t want to interrupt you two with whatever you’ve been doing.” Yang got up. “Can we talk about something in private?”, she said and Blake nodded, still madly glaring at Yang as she pulled her outside.

Emerald closed the door behind them, not making any attempt to follow them. “Mercury Black”, she said as if she had found another rotten slice of pizza under his bed. “What the hell was she doing here?”

“Breakfast for lonely souls.” He shrugged. “Guess she didn’t want to be alone.”

“You don’t just have breakfast with some girl you don’t even like. What the hell happened?”

“You told me to bond with her, didn’t you?”

 “But… not in your bed!” Emerald sat down next to Mercury, took his cup of coffee and took a sip, flinched. “This is horrible. But honestly, Mercury. What happened between the two of you.”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Don’t ask questions like that and I don’t have to lie to you.”

“God, do you even realise what you’ve got yourself into?”

He shrugged. “A hot woman I guess.”

“Oh god, I really hate you.” She put the coffee on the bedside table and poked his chest to underline her words. “Do you have any idea what Blake will do to you if you hurt her?”

“Em, this is not some sort of… relationship or anything. We both know what we’re in for, we’re adults, don’t make a big deal out of it. And don’t tell Blake because then Yang will cut my throat.”

“Are you really making me keep a secret from Blake? God, I can’t believe you.” She leaned against the wall and ran her hands through her hear. “I swear if you hurt her I will help her get rid of the corpse.”

“I will not pretend to like her, okay? And at least you can lock us into a room for an hour without us ripping each other’s throats now.”

“Not without you taking each other’s clothes off though. If you ever make me walk in on your disgusting bare butt I will end you.”

“I feel protective of your poor gay eyes, don’t worry.”

 

* * *

 

“So why did Ruby tell me you’re horribly sick and asked me to take care of you?”, Blake asked when they had reached Yang’s dorm. “And what the hell have you been doing in Mercury’s bed?”

“I met Raven”, Yang said, deliberately ignoring her last question because no way she would have that talk now.

“What?” Blake looked concerned all of a sudden, sitting down on Yang’s bed. “Yesterday?”

She sat down next to Blake. “She said she’d be in town for this one day, so I told Ruby I’m sick because I just… I can’t tell them I met Raven. Dad would be so hurt. He warned me of her countless times and he was right, she only wanted me to put in a good word for her so she gets Winter as a new business contact. I can’t tell them, they’d just think Raven is more important to me than they are.”

For a moment Blake didn’t say anything, then she just wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. “Oh, Yang. But why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to spoil your Christmas with my abandoned child drama, so I just got on Mercury’s nerves, because he doesn’t care about Christmas anyway.”

“As if I’d want you to spend Christmas alone. But why don’t you just go there now?”

“I can’t drive, Blake.” It felt wrong mentioning it, because mentioning the accident always made Blake uncomfortable. “I don’t even have a car.”

“Oh, Yang.” Blake stroked her back and held her close. “As if I’d let you be sad and alone on Christmas.”

Yang’s phone buzzed, still lying on the bedside table. Raven’s number. “Let it ring, I won’t answer it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I don’t want to talk to her right now. Or ever again.” She sighed and got up. “Anyway, you really don’t need to take care of me.”

“But I want to. How about we get lunch together? We can take Emerald with us, and Mercury if you don’t mind, but we don’t have to invite him.”

The phone stopped buzzing and Yang took it, deleted the messages from Raven without looking at them. Then she saw Weiss’ message. _Did you stay because of Mercury?_ She sighed and typed _Of course not_ , then pressed Send, looked up. “No, he’s fine. Not as much of an asshole as he used to be.”

“Alright”, Blake said. “Can I brush your hair? It looks horrible.”

Yang smiled and nodded. She got the brush from the desk when someone knocked on her door. She opened before she could think about the possibility of Raven being the one behind it.

It wasn’t Raven. She didn’t know the name of the guy, but she had probably seen him with Cardin from time to time. He lived on the same floor as her. “Hey, someone left this here for you”, he said and gave her a small wrapped package. “I didn’t know you’re home, why didn’t she just knock here?”

Yang stared at the package. The expensive wrapping paper left no doubt it was from Raven. For a moment she was angry at her for trying to buy her attention now, but Raven had probably had it before, none of the stores she usually went to were open today. “Thank you”, she said and closed the door before the guy could get out another word.

“From Raven? She was here?”, Blake asked.

“That’s probably why she called.” Yang opened the drawer of her bedside table and put the package inside, next to a box of condoms and her favourite lemon drops.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Not now. Or ever. I don’t know.” She sighed, then sat down next to Blake and gave her the brush. Blake brushing her hair had become some sort of ritual for the two of them after the accident. Yang had learned to do her hair without her right arm, slowly, but still not as good as she wanted to and as much as she usually hated people touching her hair, Blake doing it had something comforting to it. “Do you think it was a mistake? Maybe she’ll never call again.”

“If she does that she’s not worth it Yang.”  

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a bit longer to update this time because I was horribly busy with stuff (not that interesting) but I also (hang on, this one's very interesting) I started to write another Gauntlets & Greaves fanfiction. I won't start to post it until I've finished this one because updating two fanfictions regularly is a bit stressful, but I think you'll really, really like it. Lots of G&G, another ship that I personally really like (at least the way I write it) and lots of drama. But I am also super excited for what's coming next here, some super sweet and cheesy moments and an ending I already have planned out for a while now!

“Shut up, I will never talk to you again.” Weiss threw the controller on the bed and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Oh, are you sulking because you’ve lost?” Ruby grinned and poked Weiss into the ribs. “Maybe you’ll win next time.”

“You said that last time! And before! I’ll never play that stupid game again.” She leaned back against the headboard. They had escaped to Ruby’s room a while ago, when the long conversations had begun to drain both of them. Now they were sitting on Ruby’s bed, eating leftover cake from earlier and playing video games.

“Why don’t you suggest a game you’re good at?”

“Because I won’t explain chess to you now, that will take too long.”

“I know how to play chess.” Ruby rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you go downstairs and listen to Qrow’s inappropriate stories about college for the thousandth time?”

“I’d rather lose that stupid game again. Why do the holidays always get so exhausting after a while?”

“Because people get exhausting after a while.” Ruby leaned her head against Weiss’ shoulder. “It’s normal to feel like that for some people.”

“Yeah, probably.” Weiss grabbed the remote and switched from the menu of the game to the normal television programme. Weiss had started to think a while ago that the true reason they had been friends for so long now was that as much as they argued and bantered, they never got exhausted around each other like with everyone else. Ruby could be annoying, but Weiss felt comfortable around her, didn’t need to think too much about anything she said and did.

Now Ruby’s black hair tickled her neck like so often and for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to calm down. She could smell her flowery shampoo, the one she had used herself this morning, and she still felt on edge. She had no idea why except-

_Oh, fuck._

Her fingers tensed around the remote. _Calm down_ , she told herself. _Only because you’re gay now you don’t have to be gay for every girl around you_. She took a deep breath. Didn’t help much. Suddenly she felt overly aware of Ruby’s presence. Her cheek against Weiss’ shoulder, her thigh touching hers. _Stop it, you useless lesbian._

“You know, maybe we should go back downstairs”, she said. “Before Qrow behaves so badly Winter breaks up with him.”

“Are you sure? You seemed to be suffering so much down there.” Ruby sat up, looking at her so adorably caring that Weiss felt like biting her tongue off.

“I don’t want Winter to cancel the wedding, that’s all.”

 

* * *

 

Weiss had never been good at stopping herself to think about something. Especially while lying in bed, Ruby being right next to her, sleeping and breathing and filling her thoughts.

It was ridiculous. Probably just an overreaction of her being gay for not much more than a month now. Still she couldn’t sleep because every time she tried to she felt her mind drifting away to Ruby’s soft hair and adorable smile.

So she got up. She didn’t dare to turn the lights on and moved as careful as possible. When she had closed the door behind her she realised she didn’t even know where to go.

So she went for the kitchen. She got herself a glass of water and didn’t know what to do then so she sat down at the kitchen table and stared into the dark until she heard someone coming down the stairs.

“Oh, you’re awake?”, Winter asked. She was wearing one of Qrow’s shirts over her underwear, getting herself a glass of water as well. “I forgot taking my antibiotics.”

“Still that throat thing?”

“It got much better, but you’re supposed to take them for a while so it doesn’t come back.”

“You shouldn’t work that much while you’re ill.”

“Oh, don’t you start with that too. Qrow telling me all the time is enough already. Anyway, what keeps you awake that late at night?” She sat down on the other side of the table, swallowing the antibiotics with water.

“Winter, what if I was gay?” She said it before she could think too much about it.

Winter almost choked on her water. She coughed, tears streaming down her face while spilling half the water left in her glass. “Weiss”, she finally managed to say. “Don’t say something like that while I’m trying drinking.” She took a deep breath, then coughing again. “Knew it.”

“What?!” For a moment Weiss forgot to keep her voice down. “What do you mean?”

“I… nothing. I just thought Ruby was your girlfriend for a while, until you told me you were going on a date with that other guy… I don’t remember his name. Caught me off guard.”

“Ruby? She’s… she’s not my girlfriend.” The thought seemed so utterly unthinkable. “I don’t even like her that way. I totally don’t. Also I would never risk our friendship like that, and she totally doesn’t like me that way either, it would be too complicated with our rooms- well, actually she’s sleeping in my room all the time anyway, but that’s not what this is about, I-“

“Weiss, calm down.” Winter got up and stepped behind her, then wrapped her arms around her tightly. “You don’t have to justify yourself.”

“But I’m not-“

“You’re perfect and I’ll wreck everyone who says otherwise.”

 “Not if I get them first.” Weiss smiled and leaned into the hug. “But dad would be so pissed if I brought home a girlfriend.”

“Oh, yes he would. I’d love to see his face. But that would still be one girlfriend more than Whitley will ever get.”

Weiss chuckled. “Do you think so? He’s rich after all.”

“Rich and a spoiled little brat. Women aren’t into that.”

There were footsteps on the stairs again and they both fell silent until Qrow entered the kitchen. “You were gone and you didn’t come back”, he mumbled, looking a bit lost, tired and way less confident than usually.

“Go back to bed, we’re having a sisterly moment.” Winter’s voice sounded just as harsh as when she talked to one of her employees.

“A sisterly moment”, he mocked her, but he still smiled a little when he turned around and left the room again.

“Wow, he really is in love with you”, Weiss said.

“Yeah.” Winter sat down next to her, smiling dreamily. “I guess he is.”


	27. Chapter 27

So Christmas was finally over, and she had irreversibly missed it. Yang had been dying to see Ruby again, and Qrow joining her, Weiss and Winter on their way home before staying with Winter for the rest of the year was even better. But when they hugged and exchanged presents she felt guilty, nothing but guilty.

She couldn’t stand it for much longer than half an hour, so she told the others she was still feeling a bit weak on the knees and went back to her dormitory, back to her room, burying her head in the pillow that still smelled a bit like Mercury’s hair and somehow it soothed her.

It knocked on her door. She felt like just ignoring it, but eventually she raised her head. “Yeah?”

It was Qrow. He didn’t look as happy and cheerful as before. Rather worried. She rolled on her back. “Hey”, she said.

“Hey.” He closed the door behind him and sat down at the other end of the bed. Yang was sure that Winter had bought the black cardigan he was wearing, not his style and too expensive. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah.” She sighed and closed her eyes. As a child she had always felt like he could read her mind. The truth was far less magical. For some reason she just couldn’t lie to him. She still wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing. “Qrow?”

“Mh?”

“Actually I wasn’t sick. I stayed to meet Raven.”

“I know.”

Her eyes shut open. She sat up, staring at him. “How?”

“She called me, told me to have an eye on you. I already suspected something like that.”

She groaned, leaned back and grabbed her pillow to hold onto something, pressing it against her chest. “She said she’s in town for this day only, so I just…”

“Actually I yelled at her, because it’s pretty awful of her to make you do that. But she never cared about those things. Christmas, birthdays, family.”

“Yeah, I probably should have known.”

“Not to say she doesn’t care about you. She does. But she’s never been exactly good at that.”

Sometimes it was just so hard to believe that. She had tried so hard, clinging to every sign of Raven giving a shit about her, of Raven actually wanting to be in touch with her. Maybe she had been wrong about that all along. “She tried to call me. I didn’t answer. And then she brought a present, but I didn’t open it.”

“Do you want to?” He looked at her, as calm as only he could.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I don’t even deserve it. I lied to dad and Ruby, skipped Christmas, just so I could see her. I should have known better. She didn’t call for months after the accident, didn’t even bother to visit.”

“No, don’t do that. It’s her fault. Only hers. She shouldn’t have done that.”

“Know what?”, she said bitterly. “She only wanted to see me so I can make Winter like her more so she can get her as a business contact.”

“She did what?” For a moment Qrow lost his composure. “That bitch. I didn’t expect her to sink that low.”

Yang shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t have expected anything else in the first place. But just… please don’t tell anyone. It would just hurt them even more.”

“Sure”, he growled. “But you can bet I will tell Raven how much she has fucked up this time.”

His anger felt good. Like it wasn’t her fault. But she knew it was. “I think I want to open it”, she said. “The present. It’s probably just something her assistant bought. But I don’t want to think about it any longer.”

“Her assistant has an exquisite taste, the card to refuse our wedding invitation was beautiful.”

“You actually invited her?” She raised her eyebrows while pulling the small package out of her drawer.

“We knew she wouldn’t come anyway. But Winter said if we invite her she still has to get us a present, that’s why she put all those expensive stuff on the wedding list.”

“Did I ever tell you I really like Winter?” She turned the package around in her hands until she finally started to rip the wrapping paper apart. It felt utterly satisfying. Inside was a small box, black and surprisingly unimpressive. She opened it. “Oh”, she said.

“What is it?”

She turned the box around to show him. It was a small silver necklace, a little pendant that looked like either a crow or an eagle, delicate but also simple. Usually everything Raven surrounded herself with looked expensive, but this necklace lacked anything that represented status in the slightest.

“I certainly didn’t expect that”, Qrow said tonelessly.

“What do you mean?” She didn’t know what to feel. It wasn’t a bad present at all, she just didn’t understand it. Maybe it was expensive and she just couldn’t see it? But the silver didn’t even look bright and new, a bit tarnished here and there. Was it vintage? But Raven wasn’t a vintage kind of person. Maybe her assistant was?

“It’s just… I know that necklace”, he said. “It belonged to our mother. I didn’t know she still had it.”

“Oh.” She stared at the little silver bird and tried to push all the feelings away. All the hope that threatened to push her into making bad decisions again.  

“She gave it to her when she was fifteen and she wore it day and night until our mother died. Hey, don’t… don’t read too much into everything she does, okay? She rarely gets sentimental these days. Maybe she just thought she could finally get rid of it that way.”

“Yeah, probably.” She closed the box and tried to stop herself from getting her hopes up again. She threw the box into the drawer and closed it. “I should probably just wait until I need a new prosthetic before I call her again.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He sighed. “Hey, do you still play that stupid video game?”

“Yeah, sometimes.” He just tried to cheer her up. It didn’t help, but she appreciated it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo the next chapter is going to be long, so it will take me a bit longer to update. So far it's over 2k long and I've only written the Yang part yet (not even all of the Yang part). It's the chapter where big stuff finally happens. Stay hyped everyone!


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fiiiiiiiiiinally

“If I were you I’d just kiss her”, Yang said.

“You’re the worst.” Ruby shook her head, staring at Weiss who was chatting with Neptune at the other side of the room. They had gotten rid of most furniture for tonight to celebrate New Year’s Eve. It had also been an excuse for Ren to finally clean Yang’s and Nora’s room properly. “I can’t just kiss her.”

“Why not?”

“She’s my friend. What if that changes anything?”

Yang sighed. Well, of course she knew Weiss was gay, but Ruby didn’t and she wasn’t the one to tell her. Also she was already tipsy. “But she has nice lips.”

“That’s not an argument here, Yang!”

“Yeah, anyway, want to dance?”

“No, go alone.” Ruby sighed and poured some of her coke into Yang’s cup of rum coke to get more non alcoholic liquids into her. She was the cutest little sister in the whole wide world.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, just go already. I’ll slowly make my way up to Weiss.”

“Do that.” She kissed Ruby’s cheek.

She had actually intended to dance along with Nora and Sun, but then she spotted Mercury who was leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest. If she was completely honest she had watched him all night long, but she wasn’t drunk enough to lose her ability to lie to herself.

“How many of those did you have?”, he asked when she approached him, pointing towards the cup in her hand.

“Not many.” She giggled and leaned her head against her shoulder. Enough not to care about others watching them. “Not too many to have another one.”

He took her cup and smelled at it. “Do you want to actually witness midnight or is this part of your plan to forget the last year entirely?”

“Just having fun.” She took the cup back and almost spilled it over his shirt. He wrapped his arm around her waist, probably just so she wouldn’t fall. “You having fun, Merc? Do you want to dance?” She buried her face in his chest, just do drown in his scent once again, to feel his warms against her cheek. It felt too good. Why did no one ever tell anyone how good this could feel?

“You should probably switch to water.” He took the cup again and this time she let him, as long as he didn’t push her away.

“Did I ever tell you your body is so comfortable?”

“You might have phrased it differently.” He moved closer, until she could feel his breath on her neck as he whispered. “Like when you said you could just stay in bed and fuck me all day if you didn’t have classes.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean what I meant right now now. I meant that other thing as well, honestly. Also I phrased it differently, watch your dirty mouth.” She chuckled and looked up to him. “We could still do that later.”

“If you’re not too drunk. Also Blake is staring at us.”

“Probably because she wants to talk to me about something.” Probably it wasn’t a good idea to make out with him right here right now, even though she really wanted to. “Can you manage being without me for a couple of minutes?”

“Barely.” He smirked and looked down to her. He wasn’t much taller than her, but she was somehow leaning against him, somehow hugging him but she refused to call it that. They were not hugging. She was just drunk.

“Have fun.” She resisted the urge to kiss him and poked him into the ribs instead before she had to let go of him.

Blake was sitting on the window shelf. When Yang finally joined her there she got up, staring at her as if Yang had just kissed Emerald. “We need to talk.”

“Something wrong?”, Yang asked when Blake pulled her out of the room.

“You tell me.” She closed the door behind them and pulled her a bit down the hall. “The hell is going on between you and Mercury?”

“I… I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on, you were basically cuddling him as if he was your boyfriend.” Blake crossed her arms in front of her chest and slowly shook her head. “You couldn’t stand each other and I know when something’s going on with you, you’re never subtle about it. You’re into him, aren’t you?”

“I’m not into him, I just sleep with him”, she said before she could think about it.

“What?” Blake lost all her composure for a moment. “When? How? Why?”

“Just… it’s a long story, okay?”

“I have time.”

“We kinda had a one night stand before you even met him for the first time.” She leaned against the wall. “And then it was weird, but do you remember that one time we went to a bar and disappeared to the restrooms for a very long time?”

“No, you didn’t.” Blake shook her head and sat down on the floor. “Sometimes I can’t believe you. That was months ago. And this has been going on since then?”

“Well… yeah.” She shrugged and sat down next to Blake.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to make things weird between you and Merc. He’s your girlfriend’s best friend after all.”

“But… what if he hurts you?”

“Oh, why does everyone keep saying that?” She groaned and leaned her head against the wall. “I’m not some delicate flower to protect, it’s just casual sex. We both know what we’re in for. I don’t expect him to suddenly marry me.”

“Yang, you’re not the one for casual sex.”

“Oh, come on, I totally am.”

“You were _cuddling_ him.”

“I’m just drunk. And we get along well now, how often do I cuddle you when I’m drunk? I mean… okay, friends with benefits, how does that sound?”  

Blake shook her head and wrapped her arm around Yang’s shoulders. “Just… if there’s anything you want to talk about, don’t hesitate. I don’t care about him as much as I care about you.”

“You’re the best.” She kissed her cheek and leaned her head against Blake’s shoulder. “I don’t think I’ll need it but you’re still the best.”

“Yeah, I know.”

 

* * *

 

“Ruby, let’s leave”, Weiss said after half an hour.

“Already? But we have barely been here.”

“Yeah, but I can totally see how much you hate it and it definitely felt like it’s been long enough.”

Ruby sighed. “Have I been so obvious?”

“Pretty much. Do you want to stay?”

“No. Just worried the others might be disappointed.”

“Give them five minutes and everyone will either be making out with someone or too drunk to remember anything that happened tonight. Want to go to my room and just hang out?”

“Oh, hell yes.”

Weiss wasn’t even sure if she had done this because she had noticed how uncomfortable Ruby had been, or just for her, because she didn’t want to spend New Year’s eve alone, but also not in there, around all those drunk people.

Weiss’ room was wonderfully quiet. “I’ll just put my pyjama on”, she said while Ruby took her coat off. “Do you want to borrow anything?”

“No, my leggings are comfortable enough.”

“Make yourself comfortable”, Weiss said when she went to the bathroom. Yang had told her that she didn’t need to feel that awkward about undressing in front of the other girls. She knew it was. But she also couldn’t really help it and Yang had also told her not to force herself to do things she didn’t want just for the sake of it.

Ruby was sitting on her bed when she came back. “I borrowed some of your comfy socks”, she said.

“Sure. Do you want to watch a movie?”

“Yes.”

The sat close next to each other, Weiss’ laptop on the bed in front of them. There wasn’t a reason to be that close, the bed was big enough, but they had gotten used to it during moments when they both had felt anxious in their own ways. But what usually calmed Weiss down made her feel on edge now. She was overly aware of Ruby’s thigh touching hers, her breath and every tiny movement she made.

She turned her head and looked at her. Ruby’s gaze was locked to the screen, she was biting her lip like she always did and strands of soft hair were falling into her face again, it always looked incredibly good on her.

“Why are you staring at me?”,  Ruby asked and Weiss flinched.

“Nothing, I just…” She didn’t know what to say and quickly looked away.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.” No.

For a moment they both just watched the movie, or Ruby watched it because Weiss couldn’t concentrate. She caught herself staring at Ruby’s hands and for a moment she didn’t know what to do. They had both always been comfortable with being close, leaning against each other and touching, but only within the ties of their friendship. Platonic hugs, platonic cuddling, platonic hand holding. Moving past that felt like risking everything at once, jumping into the cold water without knowing what would wait beneath the surface.

Her heart was beating way too fast when she softly stroked the back of Ruby’s hand with her fingers. It felt way more dangerous and forbidden than everything she had done before. Then Ruby slowly stretched out her fingers to reciprocate the touch. It felt like warmth rushing through her veins, electrifying and intoxicating. Weiss only now noticed she had been holding her breath.

She looked up. Ruby was looking at her, eyes beaming with something she hadn’t seen on her face before, but also somehow insecure, all at once. Weiss felt like looking away, running away, and she knew how ridiculous it was, because they had been close before, closer than this, but every tiny step further felt so incredibly hard right now.

But they had made the first step now, even if it had only been a slight touch of their hands, she could see in Ruby’s eyes that she had _noticed_. It felt like the hardest thing to do when she leaned forward and closed the gap between them to kiss her.

Her lips were so soft and warm, and when Ruby laid a hand on her cheek to pull her closer everything she felt was warmth and ease. Ruby pulled away way too soon. “So we’re doing that now?”

“Dolt”, Weiss said softly. “Don’t make me talk about this.”

“You know, it’s very unhealthy not to talk about feelings.” Ruby stroked her cheek with her hand and bit her lip nervously before she kissed her again. Weiss smiled when she kissed her back, allowing herself to wrap her arm around Ruby’s waist.

“We can work on the talking part next year, okay?”, she whispered against her lips.

“Yeah, next year sounds great.”  

 

* * *

 

Half past eleven she felt too sober for this party. Neptune was somehow making out with Sun in a corner, Blake had fallen asleep in Emerald’s arms and her sister was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully snogging Weiss somewhere.

It was only when she saw Mercury leave she finally allowed herself to approach him again.

“Leaving already?”, she asked, standing on the hallway and just wanting to get to bed.

He turned around, shrugged. “Not a party person.”

“I’m just not drunk enough for this party.” Or too single. Everyone was making out with or cuddling someone. “And it’s kinda happening in my room, so I have nowhere else to go.”

“You can wait in my room until it’s over.”

“Are you just trying to get me to sleep with you?”

“Oh, come on. I wouldn’t need to try.” He smirked and she couldn’t help but to smirk back.

“True, I guess.” She walked past him, winking at him in an overly seductive manner which only made him laugh.

His room seemed so quiet and familiar. He opened the window and she joined him there, staring at college students getting ready for the new year in the courtyard. Her shoulder touching his. “So, not a party person?”, she asked.

“Too many people.” He shrugged. “I can’t be in a room with people without paying attention to what they’re doing. It gets exhausting with more than one person.”

She didn’t dare to ask. He had made clear that there were parts about him and his past he didn’t want to talk about. “So… my sister is hopefully getting her New Year’s kiss right now.”

“With her blonde girlfriend?”

“She’s not actually her girlfriend, they’re just good friends.”

“Oh, Em was so sure they secretly have something going on.”

“I wish they did.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, didn’t you feel weird between all those couples?”

“Jealous?”

“What? No. Not really. I mean… yeah, jealous of actually getting a New Year’s kiss because every time I didn’t since the age of fifteen something went horribly wrong. Had three great kisses, three amazing years, missed it once, crashed my car against a tree and lost an arm.”

“Didn’t know you were that superstitious.”

“I’m not. Just… maybe about this one thing, okay? I mean wouldn’t want to risk it.”

“Yang, if you want to kiss me at midnight just ask.” He sounded annoyed, the way he talked when he actually wasn’t.

“I didn’t tell you about it just so _you_ would kiss me”, she said. Did she?

“Okay.”

“I mean you can if you want to, I don’t mind.” She stared at a guy kissing his boyfriend outside, or a guy he had just met, just so she didn’t have to look at Mercury as he chuckled.

“You realise I have kissed you before?”

“That’s different, it was for sex.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mind there, why would I mind now?”

“I didn’t even say you do mind!”

“So no kiss? Okay.”

“I didn’t say that as well.”

He laughed, softly nudged her with his elbow. She rolled her eyes, for some reason feeling on edge all of a sudden. She nudged back, then looked at him, almost shyly. He looked unbearably smug, but there was also some rare warmth in it. “I mean we wouldn’t want to risk you losing that other arm as well”, he said. “Though you might get a discount on the second prosthetic, I should have asked for that.”

“Did you just make a joke about your legs?”, she asked, grinning.

“How could I, I don’t have legs.”

“You asshole.” She laughed and stroked his hand briefly before she could think too much about it.

“So how much time do we have left?”

“Wait.” She took her phone out of her pocket. “Five minutes.”

“Time for last minute New Year’s resolutions.”

“Keep my room tidier. Do you have any?”

“I don’t consider myself redeemable enough for that.”

She sighed and felt the sudden urge to kiss him, but she just grabbed his hand instead, squeezed it for a moment. It was still too much, why did she even do it at all?

Because she was drunk, that’s why.

“So… now we just wait?” She was too nervous to let go of his hand, but then he intertwined his fingers with hers and she didn’t know if she had actually crossed a line or was just overly cautious. “I mean we don’t want to miss it, do we?”

“If you’re gonna be that hesitant about just kissing me from now on this won’t be as much fun anymore.”

“I didn’t-“

He muffled her protest with his lips and all of a sudden she forgot what she had wanted to say. It felt like a first kiss in a way, even though she had kissed him so often before. Maybe because this was a first time. Not a hungry kiss before having sex, not a lazy kiss before falling asleep. Just a kiss. Surprisingly soft and even though the cold December air was already crawling beneath her clothes she felt warm.

She wrapped her arm around his neck to pull him closer. She felt warm and light in his arms, probably just because she was so used to have amazing sex with him, probably just that. Still she didn’t really feel like having sex right now. She just didn’t want this kiss to end, didn’t want him to stop softly running his fingers through her hair.

He pulled away way too soon, but he stayed close, resting his forehead against hers. “We can’t miss midnight”, she said, voice a bit raspy.

“It’s way past midnight, didn’t you hear the people cheer down there?”

“No.” But she really hadn’t paid attention. “So… happy New Year.”

He shrugged and looked at her as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. She hated how nervous it made her.

“So, what are your plans for the rest of the night?”, she asked.

“Sleeping. I’m tired.”

“Yeah, me too. But I don’t really have a bed at the moment.” She had been supposed to sleep in Blake’s bed while Blake slept in Emerald’s, but the thought of walking all the way to their dormitory wasn’t exactly tempting right now.

He chuckled and briefly brushed her lip with his thumb. “Just ask if you can sleep here.”

“That’s not what I wanted to say.”

“It’s not like I would suddenly mind _this_ time.”

“You just don’t want to sleep alone.”

He laughed. “That’s not what I wanted to say.”

She nudged him. “Borrow me a shirt?”

“Sure.” He opened his closet to get her one and she suddenly missed his body being so close to hers. She didn’t care about him watching her undress to her underwear before she put the shirt on. He obviously didn’t care about her noticing he was watching.  

He went to the bathroom and she crawled under his blanket. The scent had grown so familiar to her. She was already half asleep when he came back, pulling at the blanket she was holding tightly before he just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. At least that way the blanket was big enough for both of them, she thought.

“Can’t you like… tame your hair before you go to bed?”, he mumbled, trying to shove it away from his face.

“You mean braiding it?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Sometimes you’re…”

“It would look horrible next morning, also difficult with the prosthetic.” She stroked away her hair herself, trying to get comfortable until her head was resting on his chest. “But yeah, what am I?”

“Not asleep”, he mumbled, kissing her forehead. She could feel her stomach tingle.

“Who’s keeping me awake, huh?”

“Can’t fall asleep while thinking about my handsome face?”

“In your dreams.”

He chuckled, his hand finding its way under her shirt, just to rest on her bare back. It didn’t feel sexual and she was pretty sure it also wasn’t meant that way, just… comforting. For a moment the thought of him touching her bare skin helping him fall asleep made her smile.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. It's been too long. Let's just say life was a bitch. I tamed the bitch. The end of this story is in sight and I think you'll like the chapters to come. I also wrote about 10k of a new story but I'm not allowed to post any of it until I finished this one or Bedtime Stories, so I am very motivated to finish this one soon to show you some of the new stuff I've been working on. I think you'll like it.
> 
> Anyway, updates will definitely come quicker now. I promise.

Yang woke up with a headache and the unsettling feeling on having done something wrong she couldn’t remember. Her mouth felt dry and she felt like she would throw up if she moved even a tiny bit.

The next thing she noticed was that this wasn’t her bed, and someone’s arm was wrapped around her waist. And then she remembered.

She turned around and groaned. This was probably the worst hangover she had ever had. Mercury’s warmth was comforting and she buried her head in his chest, moving closer to reward herself for moving at all.

“You sound like you’re going to die”, he said.

“I think I am.”

“Hangover?”

“Mhm. Don’t move.”

He laughed and stroked her back. She wondered why he was awake, to be more specific why he was awake and still in bed. She didn’t complain though. “I think Fox has painkillers somewhere”, he said.

“I don’t want to get up.”

“I can get them for you.”

“No, don’t leave me.” She gripped the collar of his shirt. “You’re comfortable.”

“You’re cute when you’re suffering. Your phone didn’t stop buzzing by the way.”

“Did someone call?”

He moved, reaching for something. “No, but Ruby sent you fourteen messages.”

“Shit.” She raised her head, but the pain hit her like a hammer. “Can you read them for me?”

“Yang, wake up, this is not a test, Yaaaaang with five As… oh.”

“What?”

He chuckled and she tried to get hold of the phone without moving her head, but he wouldn’t have it. “She kissed Weiss”, he finally said.

“Holy shit. What?”

“I kissed Weiss, now she’s asleep and we’re cuddling, what do I do? That was her last one. Also some panicked emojis. Does she always use that many emojies?”

“Oh no, I have to safe her.”

“She sent those at two in the morning, I think you can take your time.”

“What if she has already broken her heart?” Yang forced herself to sit up and almost threw up. “My head is killing me. What time is it?”

“Half past one.”

“What… why didn’t you wake me up?”

He smirked, crossing his arms behind his head. “You were comfortable.”

“I have let her down.” She buried her face in her hands. The headache was killing her. “I’m never going to drink again.”

“How often have you said that already?” Mercury got up and after a moment something cold touched her arm. She looked up and then took the water bottle he was giving her.

“A few?”

“That’s why I don’t drink.” He opened the drawer Fox’ night table and threw a bottle of painkillers at her. It landed on the bed next to her.

“Really? Because of the hangovers?”

“More because my father was an alcoholic, but I that’s a pleasant side effect.” He turned his back towards her when he took his shirt off and nothing gave away how surprisingly honest his statement had been. “I’ll take a shower.”

She felt like hugging him, kissing him, just doing _something_. But he probably wouldn’t want her to. “I’ll text Ruby”, she said. “If I’m gone once you’re back I went to save her.”

“Looking at you I can shower twice and you won’t make it further than out of the bed.” He turned around. His expression gave nothing away. “Don’t throw up in my bed.”


	30. Chapter 30

“Ruby, wake up.”

“I don’t want to.” Ruby turned around and buried her head in her pillow. “Five more minutes.”

“Ruby, why again didn’t we set an alarm clock?” Weiss sat up next to her and- wait. Weiss sat up next to her. And suddenly Ruby remembered everything that had happened last night.

She had kissed Weiss.

Ruby felt her face growing hot. The thought of having to face Weiss, having to talk about this, made her anxious beyond belief, but the memory of her lips also brought a warmth back she couldn’t get enough of. She didn’t know what to do, so she didn’t move, holding her breath.

“Ruby?”, Weiss asked. “Did you fall asleep again?”

“No…”

She felt Weiss move again, then Weiss’ hand caressing the back of her neck. “You didn’t sleep well, did you?”

The touch felt so familiar, so comforting, but also so warm it washed her anxiety away in a heartbeat. It had happened. But maybe it was… okay. Ruby turned her head to look at Weiss. “Yeah. Did you hear the people outside?”

“I think I just fell asleep right away.”

“I think they never went to bed. Couldn’t sleep.”

“But if you sleep now you’ll never fall back into a normal sleeping pattern.”

“Can we just stay in bed for a few more minutes? It’s so comfortable.”

“Alright.” Weiss laid back down next to her, wrapping her arms around Ruby. Ruby moved closer, Weiss’ hair tickling her nose. It felt almost unreal, to cuddle Weiss in the morning, to run her hand through her soft, white hair, to breathe in the floral scent of her shampoo.

The only thing that interrupted them was the sound of Ruby’s phone buzzing. She groaned and tried to pick it up without letting go of Weiss until Weiss gave it to her. “It’s just Yang”, Ruby said when she opened the messages, only now remembering the ones she had sent her last night.

“Is she in trouble?”

“No.” She quickly replied that she didn’t need immediate rescue and definitely no interruption, then left it somewhere on the pillow next to her.

“Ruby…”, Weiss said and it sounded much more serious than before. So serious she was already dreading what Weiss was going to say.

“Mh?” She tried to sound nonchalant.

“Are we… dating now?”

“I…” And there it was again, the anxiety. “I don’t know, I mean… I can’t just decide that.”

“Ruby Rose.” Weiss pulled herself up on her forearms and looked down at her. “Do you even want to date me?”

“Weiss, I mean… why does it sound like you’re accusing me of something when you say it like that?”

“I’m not, you know that.”

“Do _you_ even want to date _me_?”

“Of course I do, dolt, why would I even ask you if I didn’t?”

“So… we’re dating now?” Ruby couldn’t keep herself from smiling. Weiss’ hair tickled her cheek.

“Well, you said that. I guess… then we are dating.” Her smile was almost shy.

“So… you’re my girlfriend now.”

“I guess.” Weiss blushed and looked away. Ruby’s heart was beating way too fast when she pulled her down to kiss her. She had no idea what had made her brave enough to do this. Her lips were so soft. “You still have to get up”, Weiss mumbled.

“I know.” She sighed.

“I’ll go and get breakfast. You can shower in the meantime.” Weiss gave her one last kiss and then got up. “Don’t fall asleep again.”

“I won’t, I promise.” She sat up to show her good will. “Can I borrow some of your clothes?”

“Of course you can. Take something warm.”

Ruby smiled. Sometimes she did sound like Yang, only more accusatory. Still not any less affectionate if you knew her well enough. “I will.”


	31. Chapter 31

New Year ’s Eve was an excuse for all students to take it easy for a couple of days. After helping Yang and Nora to transform their room from post party hell to a dorm room that was actually more tidy than it had been before they all thought they deserved at least a week of rest.

With Ruby now dating Weiss and Sun not dating Neptune in a way nobody understood (but made Jaune flee to sleep in Pyrrha’s bed almost every night) Yang was the only single person left in their friend group. Technically Mercury was single too, but he never participated in any of their activities unless Emerald forced him too and seemed to prefer hanging out with her or Fox. Unless he slept with Yang.

“Stop stealing my onion rings”, Yang said.

“Make me.” Mercury smirked and leaned back. “You dragged me here.”

“You picked the place.”

“Because it was close and you said you were too hungry for sex, I was too lazy to cook, you said ordering food had no style.”

“I just wanted to get outside. I feel like I’m caught in that building.” The small diner was on the campus, but still a ten minute walk from their dormitory. It wasn’t like they had anything else to do anyway. She stole one of his fries, but much to her dismay he didn’t even mind. “Anyway, my sister is now dating Weiss. My uncle is dating her sister. That makes Ruby’s new aunt also her sister in law.”

“Sounds wrong when you phrase it like that.”

“It kinda does. But I’m happy for them. Ruby’s been having a crush on Weiss since forever. She deserves some happiness.”

“You don’t need to date someone to be happy.”

“You don’t have to tell me, I haven’t dated anyone in four years and I’m pretty happy.”

“Why?”

“I have many reasons to be happy.”

“No.” He crossed his arms behind his head and looked at her. “Why didn’t you date anyone in four years?”

She shrugged and dipped one of her onion rings in barbecue sauce. “Well, I just… you know, I don’t want to date someone just to date someone. I met people, I slept with people, but whenever I started to kinda date them they got on my nerves. You know, I was into this guy and when things got more serious I suddenly noticed he didn’t cut his toe nails. It somehow ruined everything for me and when I looked at him suddenly everything I could think about were his toe nails.” She looked up. “How about you?”

“I don’t like people.” He leaned forward, reaching for the ketchup bottle to start pouring parallel lines on his last remaining fries. “In general I honestly don’t. I don’t mind having people around me, but most of them just get annoying after a while.”

“But you’ve been friends with Emerald for a while. You seem pretty close.”

He shrugged. “It’s not like I hate the idea of a relationship, even though I also don’t particularly like it, I just hate the idea of a relationship with all the people I meet. Emerald just happened. I got used to her. But that doesn’t happen often. So I’m single and I don’t see a point in changing that. Life is fine the way it is.”

Something about his words bothered her and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. He didn’t want a relationship, why would she even care? Because there could be more behind his words than he was admitting to her right now? Because she didn’t believe him when he said he was happy? Because she wanted to- no. That wasn’t what they were both in for and she knew that.

“Lost in thoughts?” He stroked her hand for a moment to get her attention and it was like electricity was rushing through her all of a sudden.

“No, just… I think I ate too much.” She leaned back, running her hand through her hair to regain her composure. She felt on edge. In a good or a bad way… she couldn’t tell. “My stomach hurts all of a sudden.”

“I told you it wasn’t a good idea to eat before sex.”

“I’m sure it will be alright in a few minutes.”

He stole her last onion ring. “Do you want to leave?”

“I mean it’s getting late anyway.”

He nodded, pulling out his purse and putting a few bank notes on the table before he got up. He was paying for her. If she hadn’t known any better this almost could have been a date. No, he was probably just too lazy to split the bill. She grabbed her coat and followed him outside.

“I’m already feeling better”, she said. It had started to snow again. “Is Fox home?”

“He’ll come back next week. Are you’re sure you’re feeling better?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” She looked at him. “Also I didn’t make you buy me dinner so I could not have sex.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

“Can you sound a little bit less excited?”

“You just went from stomach flu to everything is fine in under three minutes.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that.” He sighed and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “If you’re not feeling good and just want to go to bed that’s okay.”

“I know.” She leaned against him and tried to ignore how good and comforting it felt to be close to him. She pulled him closer and kissed him. It felt so magnetising and warm she almost wanted to stop, but she wasn’t even sure anymore if she could.

“Then let’s go”, he finally said, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

“If it was summer we’d just disappear into the bushes over there”, she said.

“You’re hot, but not hot enough to do that right now.” He kissed her cheek one last time and then pulled her with him.

“That’s why I said if it was summer. If we did that now I would definitely catch a cold.”

“Let’s just get to my room fast, okay?”

She smiled and took a deep breath. Maybe she had really just caught a cold. Not feelings or something stupid like that.


	32. Chapter 32

“Nora?”

“Since when are you up that early?” Nora looked up from her book.

Yang was still lying in bed, but she had spent the night lying awake, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think of him. With the sound of Nora’s alarm clock ringing she had known she was so, so screwed and pretended to sleep so she didn’t have to talk to Nora. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“You’re already doing it, so… what is this about?”

“How did you know you had feelings for Ren?”

For a moment Yang thought Nora was choking on her tea, before she sat up and saw she was just trying to keep herself from laughing. “Are you… are you trying to tell me you fell in love with someone?”

“No! Just… I was just curious.”

“Okay, let’s just assume for a moment you are in love with someone.” Nora closed her book and turned around on her bed to face her, taking her cup of tea in both hands. She looked like a detective investigating an especially tricky case. “What would it feel like?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

Nora sighed. “It’s… you know it’s different for everyone. It might be completely different for you, especially since I have known Ren for all my life.”

“Nora, just tell me.”

“Okay, okay.” She rolled her eyes and took a sip from her cup. “So… I mean I always loved him in a platonic way. He was my best friend. But then it just… changed. I don’t know, I had never felt like being physically close to him, you know, like hugging and kissing, but then I suddenly noticed how handsome he is and how good he smells. Also I just got… so interested in him. I mean I cared about him before but suddenly I needed to know every little detail because it was the most interesting thing in the world.”

“What if I always thought he was attractive and wanted to have sex with him but now I also care about… him and everything about him and also want to cuddle him?”

“Yang Xiao Long, did you fall in love with Mercury?”

“Nora, I didn’t want to talk about specific people! Just… someone.” Yang took a deep breath and ran her hand through her hair. “I mean maybe we just became friends over time and that’s it. Maybe I just care because… I mean if _you_ had a hard time with something I would care as well. I don’t know if I’m just lying to myself and once things get serious I will get annoyed within a week just like with everyone else.”

“I can’t tell you if you love him or not, Yang.” Nora put her cup on the night table. “But you might already know the answer.”

Yang sighed and let herself fall on her back. “You know, I’ll just pretend nothing happened.” She reached for her phone. “And ask him if he wants to have breakfast with me, because if I don’t he might notice something.”

Nora slowly shook her head. “You’ll be the death of me.”

 

* * *

 

The nightmare left him panting and covered with sweat. It was five in the morning and his legs hurt, his heart was still pounding so fast it might as well have jumped out of his chest.

Mercury went for a morning run. It was still dark and horribly cold, but running was the only thing that reminded him he still could. He wasn’t trapped. When he got back to his room he felt exhausted and barely better.

His phone buzzed when he got out of the shower. He ignored it until he got dressed, then he opened the message just so he would stop asking himself who the hell had dared to bother him this morning.

It was Yang. Of course it was her. He couldn’t bring himself to be mad at her. _How about breakfast?_ He stared at her message for a moment and tried to come up with a reason to say no. _If you bring coffee_ , he finally typed and pressed _Send_. As soon as he did he regretted it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. He just knew that he would quickly be annoyed by her, that he would just feel worse around her and eventually throw her out. He wasn’t in the mood to be around people. But a part of him also wanted to see her.

He was already fully dressed when Yang knocked at his door. “It’s open”, he said, not getting up from his bed.

Yang could best be described as a golden thunderstorm that rushed through his door. Her curls were falling over her shoulders, her nose was still red from the cold. “Good morning”, she said, kicking the door shut behind her. “Please take the coffee, I’ll drop it every minute.”

He got up to take the two cups of coffee she was balancing in her arms along with two bags from the bakery. “You’re never up this early”, he said.

“You neither. Didn’t sleep well.” She put the bags on his bed because his desk was cramped with washed laundry he hadn’t put into his drawer yet.

“You seem pretty well of for not having slept well.”

“I already had two cups of coffee.” She took off her coat and shoes, then sat down on his bed.

“Sure you should have a third one?” He sat down next to her and she took one of the cups out of his hands.

“Yes. Stop me.”

“Too tired.” He sipped on his cup.

“Why are you up that early anyway?”

“Couldn’t sleep well. What did you get for breakfast?”

“Sandwiches and brownies.” She handed him her cup of coffee to open one of the bags. For some reason she seemed to use her real hand way more often than the prosthetic. He couldn’t really compare his legs to her arm, he had no experience with arm prosthetics, but maybe it was hard for her to do things with it that required more fine motor skills. Maybe it was because she was just used to get along without the prosthetic as well, she often didn’t wear it, especially around him. Her hair was falling down on her shoulders and he felt like touching it. “Tuna or ham?”

He looked up quickly as if he had been caught doing something forbidden. “Ham.”

“Hoped you’d say that.” She smirked and took a sandwich out of the bag before she took her coffee back. “You really should tidy that desk, I’m so sure I will spill coffee over your bed.”

“When Emerald comes over we usually sit on the floor.”

“I won’t sit on your floor just because you’re too lazy to clean your desk.”

He rolled his eyes. “So, how is it going between your sister and Weiss?” He didn’t actually care. He just knew that the topic would make her talk for a while and he could listen to her voice without paying attention while they ate, and more importantly they weren’t talking about him.

The weird thing was that when they had eaten and sat on his bed, talking about her roommate’s love life, he was actually feeling better. He didn’t even know why, but though she could be annoying from time to time, he never seemed to care. He liked being around her.

“I never thought about not having sex with someone I’m dating, but she has dated other people before and had sex and with Ren she doesn’t mind not having sex.”

He had no idea who Ren was. “Yeah, interesting.”

“I bore you, don’t I?”

“Never. I mean it would help if you took off your shirt.”

“Watch me, I might actually do it.” She smirked and looked at him.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Yes, but-“

He kissed her before she could say anything else. Because he really wanted to. Because he felt like if he didn’t he would overthink things too much and never do it. Her lips were so warm it almost felt like the warmth was rushing through him, leaving a tingling feeling in his chest. She laughed and he swore he could hear his heartbeat.

“I hate it when you shut me up like that”, she mumbled, pulling him closer.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, but… let me pretend.” She kissed him again. The unsettling feeling the nightmare had left him with was gone. He didn’t want to stop kissing her, to stop running his hand through her hair and when he pulled her closer he realised something quite fundamental and probably even more unsettling about her.

He was in love with her.

He froze. For a moment she kept kissing him, then she pulled away. “Everything alright?”, she asked.

“Mh.” He kissed her again lazily, just so she would stop asking him while he tried to figure out what to do. Running away? They were in his room after all.

Also he didn’t really want to.

If he was honest with himself he actually had a very good impulse control. He had learned it back when his father had still been alive out of necessity and it was something he was still able to use when needed. But after his father had died he had chosen to give up on it. He knew this would probably turn out to be a bad idea, but right now he chose not to think about it, to just do what his body wanted and not what was logical.

“I’m too tired for sex”, he said. “But you can take it off anyway.”

“Do you want to nap?”

He nodded.

“Do you want me to stay?”

He shrugged which meant yes and she knew that. She pecked his cheek, threw the empty bags in the direction of the bin and he laid down on the bed. She laid down next to him, her head resting on his chest and for a moment he let himself drown in the smell of her hair. So they did that now. They were cuddling because he had had a nightmare and having her close was comforting. He knew he couldn’t let this go too far. But he also didn’t want to deal with this right now. He just wanted to pull her closer and hear her laugh when he tickled her neck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is nearing its end. The story will have 40 chapters in total and I only got four chapters left that I actually have to write.


	33. Chapter 33

“Yang!”

She looked up. Weiss was staring at her as if she had just thrown her phone out of the window. “What’s wrong?”, Weiss asked.

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“You’ve been a bit absent”, Ruby said.

“Absent puts it a bit lightly.” Weiss slowly shook her head. “I asked you if you wanted sugar. Twice.”

“Oh, sorry. No sugar for me today.” She took a sip of her coffee to prove a point. Yang shook her head. She had tried to keep track of the conversation, but she couldn’t help but to think about this morning when she had had breakfast with Mercury, about sleeping in his arms and his breath tickling her neck. She stared out of the window of Weiss’ and Blake’s room and just wished she had told them she was not feeling good so she could have stayed with him. “So, how are things going?”

“Yang…”, Weiss said, but before she could try to force her to admit what was going on Blake interrupted her.

“Yang, why don’t we go and get the cake Nora has promised us from your room?”, Blake asked.

“Yes… yes we should do that.” Yang got up. “Then you two have time to make out.”

“Yang!” Ruby blushed.

Blake grabbed their coats. “Come on before Nora eats all of it.”

Blake waited until they made it out of the dormitory until she asked her. “So, what’s the matter?”

“Can I get away with nightmares?”

“No way.”

Yang sighed. The thing with Blake was that she just couldn’t hide anything from her. She buried her hand in the pocket of her coat. It had stopped snowing, but it was still freezing cold. “How did you know you were in love with Emerald?”

“Oh, Yang, are you kidding me?” Blake groaned. “I told you you’re not the one for casual sex. Feelings always get involved with you.”

“I didn’t say I was sure. Or that it was him. Or that it was even about me being in this sort of situation.”

Blake just ignored her. “Do you want to be in a relationship with him?”

Yang sighed and stared at her feet for a moment. “I… I don’t know. I mean right now I might want to, but what if it only takes two weeks for me to change my mind?”

“How long have you two been sleeping with each other?”

She shrugged. “A couple of months?”

“Do you really think you would change your mind that quickly if you have practically dated him for this long already?”

“Things changed already. We stopped having sex that often. This morning he was too tired, I just… what if that means we’re already getting bored with each other?”

“That happened with me and Emerald too. You never have as much sex as during the first month. I guess it just means you now enjoy spending time together without having sex. You’re not just attracted to each other anymore, you really like each other.”

“What if he doesn’t want me?”

“Did he throw you out when he was too tired to have sex?”

“No.” She sighed. She was so screwed. “We napped together.”

“He likes you.” Blake looked at her. “You finally found someone you’re ready to let into your life, don’t give up on that too quickly. Just… ask him out. On a proper date. Move the relationship to the next level.”

“And then he dumps me.”

“Okay, but… what if? I know, it will suck, but you can’t do this not-really-but-kinda-relationship forever. If he really dumps you I will make Emerald kick his ass and we’ll go out, get drunk and get you someone handsome to get over him. But if he doesn’t you’ll have a boyfriend.”

“This feels weird.” They reached Yang’s dormitory and she looked up, trying to guess which room was Mercury’s. “I’ll do it for you. Don’t say anything, I know it’s stupid, but that way I can actually make myself do it.”

“I’m happy to be your excuse to finally figure out your complicated relationship with my girlfriend’s best friend.” Blake shook her head. “Let’s get that cake.”


	34. Chapter 34

“I’m just saying that you could screw any girl. If you mess it up with her things will get complicated for me and Blake.”

“You’ll live, Em.” Mercury put down his plate and leaned against the wall.

“Yes, I might live, but it will be much harder than if you had just thought with your head for once instead of your dick. Why even her?”

“It just happened. And why not? She’s… hot.” He looked down at his hands.

“Oh my god, are you fucking kidding me?”

“What?”

“You like her.”

“Em, stop.”

“You really like her. It’s more than just sex.”

“Seriously, stop that.” He glared at her.

“You have a crush on Yang Xiao Long.”

“Do you really think I don’t know that?”, he snapped and got up, opening the window just to have an excuse to turn his back on her for a moment. Maybe also to have an escape plan.

“Merc-“

“Can you just shut up for a second?”

She did. For a moment he just stared out of the window and thought about cutting all ties with her for good. He knew he wouldn’t.

“I did that, too”, she finally said. He turned around, raised his eyebrows. “You know, just… not allowing yourself to be close to people.”

“If I needed your psychological advice I would ask for it.”

“It doesn’t help if you keep pushing people away. You think it does, but in the end you will just throw yourself back into the loop of hating yourself and letting them win. I mean it doesn’t solve anything, relationships don’t make it better, but allowing yourself to have one does.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I still think Blake will leave me any minute.”

He sighed, avoided to look at her. “She won’t, you know that.”

“I know that, but I still think she will.”

“I know.” Of course he did. He understood. That was the thing that had always glued them together – being equally screwed up by a crappy childhood. “But she still won’t leave you.”

“And you should go out with Yang.”

“Oh, come on. Why can’t things just stay the way they are?”

“Because you’re always in a horribly good mood when you see her and when she leaves one day to date a guy who is actually ready to commit to this relationship you will be in a horribly bad mood. Things never stay the way they are.” She got up. “Let’s watch one of your stupid superhero movies, Blake is out with her friends.”

“Glad I’m her replacement now.” He closed the window, the cold air already crawling under his hoodie, and then took his laptop. “As long as it’s none of your stupid romance movies.”

“They’re not stupid.” She rolled her eyes and took their plates and the leftovers of their meal. “Just pick one, I’ll fall asleep halfway through anyway.”


	35. Chapter 35

She didn't even think about it until she was about to fall asleep. Mercury had buried his face in the crook of her neck, half lying on top of her, and Yang felt so warm and comfortable she had already forgotten what time it was. Then she realised she had been seeing him every day since New Year’s Eve.

“Damn”, she mumbled and moved a little because her arm was already feeling numb. He sighed in his sleep and Yang ran her hand through his hair, closing her eyes again to just fall back to sleep.  She was wide awake.

Her phone buzzed. She groaned and tried to reach it without pushing Mercury away from her. She almost got it, then Mercury rolled off her and took the phone from the night table to throw it at her. “No one calls you when you don’t have friends, ever thought about getting rid of them?”

“Can I still get rid of you?”

He chuckled and closed his eyes again. “You can try.”

She pecked his cheek and finally answered the call. “Hello?”

“Hello, Yang.”

Yang sat up abruptly. “Oh, Winter.” It wasn’t often that she called her. Actually it rarely ever happened. Had it ever happened? “What’s the matter?”

“I’m on campus right now to bring Weiss some books she asked me to get for her, but she’s out with Ruby. Are you anywhere around so I can just give them to you? And when I’m here anyway we could have a cup of coffee and talk about some details of the wedding.”

Yang sighed. She had probably planned to meet her all along, the books were nothing but an excuse. “Sure. I’ll just have to get ready. Give me a moment.”

“Sure. I’ll just wait in this coffee shop with the vintage furniture.”

“I know which one, I’ll hurry.” Yang hung up and sighed. “I have to go.”

“Is it that important?”

“It’s about her wedding, so… yes, it is.” She climbed out of bed and searched for her clothes. “She wants a big wedding and Weiss and I help her organising a couple of things.”

“I’ve never been at a wedding.”

“Me neither.” She hurried to put on her clothes. “How do I look?”

“Amazing.”

“You’ve got your eyes closed.”

He sighed and sat up, looked at her. “Looks alright. Your hair looks messy, but it always kinda does.”

“Hickeys?”

“Yes, but you can’t see them.”

“We will talk about that later.” She grabbed her phone and leaned down to kiss him. He pulled her closer and she had to force herself to pull away. “I gotta go.”

“Have fun.”

“Maybe.” She smirked and finally brought herself to look at him one last time and leave the room. She couldn’t keep herself from grinning. She was still on her post Mercury high and she didn’t even remember when she had started to feel that good after she had been with him, but she did. As long as she didn’t think about the talk she had promised Blake to have with him she felt amazing.

Winter had almost finished her coffee when Yang arrived. She got up to hug her and Yang remembered the talk she had had with Weiss about Winter trying to warm up towards her because she really cared. It had been hard to believe back then, when she had first started to date Qrow.

“What do you want to drink?”, Winter asked, looking at the waitress who immediately hurried to get to their table.

“Hot chocolate.” Yang gave the waitress a reassuring smile. She almost looked scared.

“Green tea for me”, Winter said. “Please make sure it doesn’t brew for longer than three minutes.”

“Of course.” The waitress quickly disappeared and Yang asked herself what Winter had done. She probably didn’t want to know.

“So… the wedding?” Yang looked at Winter. “Did you finally pick the flowers? I’m still voting for freesias.”

“No, it’s… it’s something Qrow and I wanted to tell you and we decided it would be best to tell you in person.” She shifted a little as if she was uncomfortable. “Raven said she would come.”

Yang froze. “What?”

“I mean Qrow said he told you we invited her, mainly because we had to and we thought she wouldn’t come anyway. She actually said she couldn’t come, but… apparently some meetings got cancelled.”

“I guess she always finds a way to ruin everything for us.” Yang leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. The waitress came and brought their drinks, eager to disappear as quickly as she could.

“We didn’t want to do anything before we had talked to you.” Winter inspected her tea critically and then took a sip. “And actually… I mean you’re the one who will be most affected by this. If you don’t want her there we will politely ask her not to come.”

“That would just…” Yang stared at her cup of hot chocolate, probably the prettiest one she had ever gotten here. It was the first time they had brought it with a cookie and whipped cream on top. It looked to beautiful. Yang leaned forward and stirred it aggressively with her spoon until it was just creamy brown liquid that looked as delicious as the mud outside. “If she wants to come… let her. Otherwise she’ll just play the victim.”

“Yang, you know… it’s my wedding, but I still want it to be a nice day for you. No one is really looking forward to see her. I could just tell her it’s too hard for Tai to see her or that Qrow is scared he will have another breakdown. I can tell her that I don’t like her and don’t want her there.”

“No.” Yang took a sip of her hot chocolate. It tasted satisfyingly underwhelming. “She’s a bitch, but the least I can do is let her see how wonderfully happy I am without her.”

“Are you really sure?”

“Yes.”

“You can still change your mind. Just call me.”

“Thank you.” She broke her cookie into tiny pieces, just because she felt like destroying something. “Anyway, did you decide on the flowers?”

“Not sure yet. I think I’ll wait until my dress is finished and then see what looks best with it.”

“Sounds like a plan. You know, actually I don’t have much time.”

“Of course. I don’t want to keep you from studying.”

“Thank you for… telling me.” Yang took her coat and got up. “Do you still want me to get Weiss those books?”

“Oh, yes!” Winter reached for her bag and gave her a small package, tidily wrapped in brown paper. “Thank you very much.”

“No problem. Good luck with your studies.”

Yang nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything else and when she turned around to leave she felt like she should have.

She did what she always did in those situations, she texted Blake _. Raven’s gonna come to the wedding._ She sent the message before she reached her dormitory and then sat down on the stairs in front of the building because no way she could face Nora right now.

Blake replied almost immediately. _I’ll be there in five minutes_. Yang felt bad for even bothering her all of a sudden. Some students walked by and gave her weird looks. The world was cold and grey, something she had always hated about winter.

“You’ll catch a cold”, Blake said when she arrived, burying her hands in the pockets of her coat. “Why don’t you get inside?”

“Didn’t want to explain it all to Nora.” She shrugged, looked down at her mud covered shoes.

“Nora is helping Weiss to move the furniture, she’s redecorating again.” Blake stroked her shoulder for a moment. “Come on, let’s go upstairs and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

It was one of those moments when Yang thought she didn’t deserve her. Blake made her sit down on her bed while she made the tea and they cuddled up under the blanket, trying to get warm. “So”, Blake said. “Why is she coming to the wedding?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. Maybe it’s her revenge for not talking to her after what happened on Christmas. But what did she even expect, it’s not like she has ever given a damn about me.” Yang stared at her cup and then put it on the night table because she was scared to spill it in her rage. “She ignored me for years, didn’t do more than paying for my prosthetic without a word after my accident and now she wants to play mum when it’s convenient for her job? Fuck Raven.”

“She was there.”

Yang looked at her. Blake’s face was showing the same painful expression she always had when she accidentally mentioned the accident and she immediately regretted mentioning it. “I’m sorry”, she quickly said and looked away. “I shouldn’t have…”

“Raven was there after the accident, in the hospital. You were still unconscious and she stormed inside, yelled at the doctors for ten minutes straight before one of them told her what was going on. She waited there for an hour until Taiyang told her to leave because she would just upset you and… I don’t know, it almost seemed like she had used up all her anger before because she just seemed horribly worried when she left. Taiyang asked me not to tell you anything because he didn’t want to upset you, but… I think you should know.”

Yang leaned against the wall. “He never told me”, she finally said. “And… neither did she.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to destroy the relationship between you and your father. Maybe she was too scared. Maybe she’s just a bitch after all. I don’t know. But… during that time things have been weird. We all probably did things we normally wouldn’t have done. I didn’t eat for three days straight, Ruby barely talked, I… but Raven cared, at least in that moment. She really did.”

“Blake, I’m sorry. You don’t have to-“

“No, I want to.” She looked at her. “You know, the reason I never wanted to talk about the accident… I have never been that scared in my entire life and I thought if I even mentioned it I would just bring it all back, but that only made it worse. I know that now. I talked about it with Emerald. I’m… okay.”

Yang wanted to say something but she honestly didn’t know what. She sighed and pulled Blake into a hug instead, leaning her head against Blake’s shoulder. “You didn’t have to do that”, she said eventually. “Coming to the hospital every day and all that, I… I never said thank you.”

Blake wrapped her arms around Yang. “Come on, Yang. If I had been in that situation you wouldn’t have left that hospital once.”

Yang smiled. “Do you remember that nurse who told you to leave every day? I think she would have scared me off as well.”

“Oh my god, she was horrible. Told me to stop bringing food because she was convinced that wouldn’t make you eat as well.”

“Well, she was wrong.”

“Yes.” Blake laughed and leaned against Yang, adjusting the blanket to keep her warm. “So… did you talk to Mercury?”

Yang sighed. “No. I will, but I got distracted.”

“When you do tell me all about it. Text me. I’m dying for you to get together.”


	36. Chapter 36

“That still doesn’t explain why I can’t wear this dress.” Ruby turned in front of the mirror and Weiss felt like locking her into a room with a book about basic fashion rules.

“It’s too casual. You could wear that as a summer dress, but the red doesn’t fit the colour theme and even though you’re not a bridesmaid you’re still a part of the family. Try the blue one.”

“Blue is not my colour.”

“I picked a shade of blue that compliments your skin tone. Please put it on.”

“Just for you.” Ruby disappeared into the changing room. “Weiss, it doesn’t have straps.”

“I know.” Weiss leaned back. This was more exhausting than she had expected. “It will look good on you, trust me.”

“This feels weird.” Ruby opened the curtain and stepped outside.

“It looks good on you.” She got up and couldn’t help but to smile. “It’s long, so it won’t matter that much which shoes you wear, so you can get away with wearing flats.”

“I’m scared it will just drop without the straps.” Ruby turned around in front of the mirror. “It’s a spring wedding, don’t you think I will get cold?”

“I’ll get you a scarf to wrap around your shoulders in the same colour. It won’t drop though, it fits well. Trust me, I’ve been wearing dresses like this often.” She wrapped her arms around Ruby from behind and rested her head on her shoulder. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s more comfortable than the other dresses.” Ruby turned around and pecked her cheek. “If I can wear flats with this one I’ll take it.”

“Wonderful.” Weiss smiled at her. “It will look amazing on the wedding pictures, we’re all wearing different shades of blue, even the men, and in the middle stands Winter in her white dress.”

Ruby smiled and looked at her. “I’ll go get changed.” She grave Weiss a brief kiss on the lips before she disappeared into the changing room again. “Do you think she’s mad because I didn’t want to be her bridesmaid?”

“No.” Weiss sighed. “I told her that it’s not about her. She understands. If all those people staring at you makes you uncomfortable she can live with only two bridesmaids.”

“I felt so bad for saying no.” Ruby came out of the changing room again, fully dressed in black jeans and an oversized red sweater Weiss was sure belonged to Yang.

“Don’t worry. Let’s go and buy the dress before you change your mind.”

“How much is it anyway?”

Weiss took the dress out of Ruby’s hands before she could find the price tag. “Winter pays for it. She paid for Yang’s dress, too. It’s within the budget, though, don’t worry.” Though the budget Winter had given her was rather generous.

“Then let me invite you for coffee and cake in return.”  Ruby smiled at her.

“You just want an excuse to have cake, don’t you?”

“So what?” She laughed and wrapped her arm around Weiss’ waist.

“Cake and coffee sounds wonderful.”


	37. Chapter 37

“I thought you have watched that movie before”, Mercury said. “Of course that’s not his real father.”

“I did, but it’s been a while.” Yang leaned her head against his shoulder. She was wearing his hoodie, he had had just put on a pair of jeans. Her hair was tickling his face and he had somehow gotten used to it. Sitting in his bed together and watching one of the few superhero movies she didn’t know too well. Sharing a pizza with extra cheese and arguing about the use of pineapples in the pizza industry. Brief kisses that felt like they did this all the time. His arm around her waist. Her smell that still lingered on his pillow even after she left. It was kinda nice.

“Is it me or is it cold in this room?”, Yang asked, pulling at the blanket.

“Technically you’re not wearing much.” He pulled her a bit closer.

“Technically you’re wearing less, but your skin is warm.” She touched his chest. “Aren’t you cold?”

“With you it’s always like a hot bottle sticking to my side.” He smirked when she looked at him, it seemed like she wasn’t sure whether to be offended or flustered. He kissed her forehead and she blushed, then pulled him down to kiss him on the lips.

“I hate winter. I want to live somewhere where it’s summer all year long.”

“And so hot you can’t leave the house? With all your clothes sticking to your body and constant sunburn?”

“Just don’t wear any clothes. I’ll live by the beach and work as a life guard. Can you swim with your legs?”

He looked at her. “I don’t know, never tried.”

“You never tried?” She raised her eyebrows.

“No. I’ve never been much of a water person. I mean technically they’re water proof and everything, but… you know, I can just shower if I want to get wet.”

“That’s not what it’s about.” She shook her head, staring at the laptop once again. “You know… we could try it out together.”

He looked at her. The way she had said it made him suspicious. She sounded nervous, more nervous than she should have been. He wasn’t sure why the question would make her nervous at all. “Sure”, he said. “Once it’s warm again.”

She bit her lip. He knew she wasn’t attention to the movie at all, he knew she was thinking about something and he had no idea what was going on. “Mercury…”, she finally said. “Do you think we could… I don’t know, have coffee sometime?”

He stared at her for a moment. “We went to have coffee yesterday.”

“No, that’s not what I meant!” She groaned and looked at him, almost angry. “A date! I meant like a date!”

“Wait, are you asking me out?”

“Well, I’m trying, but it would be easier if you-“

“Why?”

For a moment she looked baffled, but her expression quickly got defensive. “Why not? I mean if you’re completely honest we’ve kinda been dating for a while, why not actually try to… date?”

“Yang, I’m no boyfriend material.” He avoided looking at her. He remembered Emerald’s words, of course he did, and he knew how stupid he was. Yang was gorgeous. Beautiful, charming, caring. Many guys would die to be her boyfriend. But all he could think about were a million ways he might screw this up, a million ways to run away.

“Alright then”, she said. Her voice was bitter. She got up and grabbed her jeans from the chair. He really was an idiot.

“Yang, wait”, he said.

“What? It was just a suggestion, I won’t force you to-“

“It was just a warning, it’s your choice what to do with it.” He got up and took her jeans out of her hand. “But I don’t do dates.”

“Give that to me or I swear I will-“

“As you’ve said, we’ve been there, done that, can’t we just skip that whole… dating thing?”

He could see her anger disappear. “Skip that and do… what?”

He shrugged. “Whatever comes afterwards.”

“You mean a relationship.”

“If you say that. But come on, we don’t need to go out and awkwardly talk about our five year plan and favourite movies.”

“You love talking about your favourite movies.” She awkwardly fumbled around with the empty sleeve of her right arm.

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

“We’ve had coffee before and it wasn’t like that.”

“It wasn’t a date. We just went to have coffee and… can’t it just stay like that?”

“We’re just doing something in between, that can’t last forever.”

“If you want to put a name on it then fine, but-“

“It wouldn’t be like that.” She sighed and looked away. “It would just be… you know, like this, but without using sex as an excuse to see you or thinking it might just end any minute because it was never meant to last in the first place.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Just… okay?”

“What do you want to hear?” He thought about just kissing her, but then he took her hand and sunk down on one knee. “Yang Xiao Long, will you-“

“I swear to god, Merc, I am seriously reconsidering this.”

“-be my girlfriend?”

“I hate you.” She rolled her eyes and turned around to sit back down on his bed. She was blushing. “Buy me a ring first.”

“I’ll buy you onion rings.” He got up and sat down next to her, pulled the blanket over both of them.

“Fine.” She stared at the laptop screen and bit her lip to keep herself from smiling when he kissed her cheek. “Let’s agree we don’t do that kind of cheesy stuff, okay?”

“You want me anyway.”

“Careful.” She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Or what?” He chuckled and looked at her. “Are you going to break up with me? Would be my shortest relationship so far.”

“You won’t get rid of me that easily.” She nudged him with her elbow and then leaned closer to kiss him. “But I will be just as horrible as you are. Do that again and I’ll buy us matching shirts with a picture of us on. In pink.”

“Did anyone ever tell you how intimidating you can be?”

“Sometimes.” She smirked. “Come on, we’ve already missed most of the movie.”

“You know that we can just skip to where we stopped watching?”

“I’m blonde but not stupid.”

He pulled her closer to kiss her again. “You look pretty hot in that hoodie.”

“Because I wear nothing beneath it?” She smirked and stroked his cheek. “Or because it’s yours?”

“Both.” He kissed the tip of her nose. He hadn’t expected it, but this somehow felt… right. 


	38. Chapter 38

Yang took a deep breath. She raised her hand to knock at the door, then let it sink again. “So we’re doing this”, she said.

“We’re doing what?”

“It’s Blake’s birthday and we’re both here, as a couple.” She looked at Mercury. “So tonight everyone will know.”

“I thought everyone knew already.”

“Why, did you tell anyone?”

“No, I mean Em, but that doesn’t count. But I thought you did.”

“I told Blake, but she’s good at keeping secrets.”

“Not even your sister?”

“I didn’t know how to… say it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Having second thoughts?”

“No!” She quickly pulled him down to kiss him, only to prove she really was sure about this. “I’m just nervous. People are always so shocked and then they ask questions and… it’s not about you, not even about them knowing, it’s about telling them.”

“Yang, I don’t care.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m just here because Emerald said she’d drag me here personally if I didn’t show up. Tell them, don’t tell them, it doesn’t matter.”

“I will tell them.” She took a deep breath. “Tonight. I’ll just wait for the right moment.”

The problem was that Yang wasn’t good with things she had to tell people. They had arrived together, they sat down next to each other, but she knew no one would suspect them actually being a couple and every time she told herself _Now, now I will tell them_ she got so nervous she felt like throwing up.

It was a shame, because the party was actually really nice. The floor was covered with blankets and pillows they sat on, the room was only lit by candles and fairy lights, Emerald had brought all kinds of food from the place where she worked. But it also seemed rather impossible to get everyone’s attention for once. Pyrrha and Nora were sitting on the window shelf and discussing something Pyrrha showed her on her phone, Neptune and Sun were sharing a bottle of beer and it was only a matter of time until they would start to make out, Weiss told everyone the story of how she had managed to make Winter’s wedding planner give her a massive discount after he had screwed up the flower arrangements.

“You look like you’re having the time of your life”, Mercury whispered next to her.

“You are not helping.”

“Still nervous?”

She sighed. “If I want to tell people now, I’ll have to get everyone’s attention first, and then everyone’s attention will be on me. Or I will spend the evening explaining it to people ten times.”

“So you want people to know without telling them.”

“Exactly.”

“What if I could do that?”

“I can’t just make you tell everyone, they’re my friends and they’d ask me why I didn’t tell them myself.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead he pulled her closer and kissed her. In front of everyone. Her first instinct was to push him away and ask him what the hell he was doing, but then she realised what he was actually doing.

_Oh._

All of a sudden it got uncomfortably silent. She could feel his lips curling into a smile and wondered how long she could just keep kissing him without having to deal with everyone’s reactions.

“Yang!”, Ruby squeaked and a moment later she ended the kiss abruptly by throwing her arms around Yang and giving her a bear hug. “You didn’t tell me you two were together now!”

“Surprise.” Yang felt her cheeks burn.

“I’m so happy for you!”

“Ruby, please don’t make a big fuss about it…” She sighed. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You never had a boyfriend.” At none Ruby knew of. She kissed Yang’s cheek and got up. “We will talk about that later, don’t think you can just get away with it.”

“Sure.” Yang rolled her eyes and leaned her head against Mercury’s shoulder. “I really hate you”, she mumbled.

“No, you don’t.”

“Maybe.” At least it was over now. Mercury loosely wrapped his arm around her waist. It seemed odd, not like he usually touched her, but maybe it was because of the other people around. She stole a cracker from his plate and decided she was okay with it.

It felt less weird the longer they stayed. Mercury actually wasn’t as much of a party killer as she had thought – at least when he tried. He spent a while discussing some comic Yang had no idea of with Ruby and it didn’t even seem like he was just doing it to fit in. Even Emerald seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood today.

“You are an idiot”, Blake said all of a sudden. Yang was standing by the window shelf, talking to Pyrrha who chuckled when Blake wrapped her arm around Yang’s waist and kissed her cheek. She smelled like gin. “But finally you realised it yourself and got yourself that guy.”

“How many of those did you have?”, Yang asked, taking Blake's gin tonic to have a sip.

“One for every kiss I got from Emerald.”

“So either your relationship is about to break apart or you’re incredibly drunk.” Yang gave Pyrrha the gin tonic and Blake Pyrrha’s coke in exchange.

“My relationship is so far away from breaking apart. But you do realise that we will totally make you go on double dates with us, don’t you?” Blake sipped on the coke. “If you don’t disappear to have sex in the bathroom.”

“I’m not sure if I want to know that story”, Pyrrha said.

“Once. Only once. Can you blame me? Look at him.”

Blake wrinkled her nose. “Meh.”

“Because you have never seen him without his shirt on.” She ruffled Blake’s hair.

“Anyway, did you have a gin tonic yet?”

“How about I will have a gin tonic for every coke you can drink?”

Unfortunately Yang was far better at drinking alcohol than Blake was at drinking coke, and for some reason she took great pride in it. By the time most people left the party she was just as drunk as Blake was, only that Blake was already asleep, clinging to Emerald as if her life depended on it. Yang sat next to Jaune, leaning her head against his shoulder while he told her something about his university programme she didn’t understand anymore.

“Are you asleep?”

Yang looked up. Mercury was kneeling down in front of them and for some reason Jaune had suddenly stopped talking. “No”, she mumbled.

“We were just… talking.” Jaune shifted around uncomfortably.

“I’ll pick that up if you don’t mind.” Mercury wrapped his arms around Yang’s waist and pulled her on her feet. “I should better take you to your room before you have to sleep on the floor.”

“I think Jaune thinks you’re going to kill him.” For a moment it felt like everything was moving and shifting around her. She clung to Mercury.

“Why would I?”

“Because maybe you’re a jealous boyfriend.”

“Of him?” He laughed. “Come, take your shoes on.”

It was more complicated than she had expected. She ended up sitting down while Mercury tied her shoelaces and she tried to braid his hair with one hand. Turned out either his hair was too short, or she really couldn’t braid with one hand, or she was just really bad at it. The next thing she remembered was that he was carrying her on his back and they were outside.

“Did I ever tell you that your hair smells really good?”, she mumbled.

“You’re going to be so hungover tomorrow morning.”

“I like you more than Jaune.”

“Please warn me if you get sick.”

“Only sick of… I don’t know. Something I’m sick of.” She kissed his neck. “Your skin is cold, are _you_ sick?”

“It’s December, Yang. That’s why.”

“How would I know? It’s dark.” She closed her eyes. The world seemed to turn upside down, he was talking to someone and suddenly everything was warm and bright. She groaned and buried her face in his hoodie.

“Yang, you have to let go.”

She raised her head. They were in her room. She slowly let go of him and then she was lying on her bed. Was it her bed? Yes, it was. “How did we get here?”

“Is she drunk?”, Nora asked and Yang blinked.

“What are you doing here?”, she asked.

“Okay, nevermind.” Nora got up from her bed and opened the closet, throwing one of Yang’s pyjamas at her.

“I’m just surprised you never got a tattoo when you were drunk.” Mercury helped her out of her coat, she didn’t even remember putting it on.

“I’ll get your name tattooed on my butt, just to annoy any person I date after I dumped you for eating my onion rings.” She let herself fall on her back again, trying to concentrate so the ceiling would stop moving. Mercury was taking off her shoes, that much she noticed.

“You know, I left an hour ago so I could get some sleep, but this is kinda worth waking up.” Nora sat down next to Yang on the bed and tried to make her drink some water. Yang almost choked on it.

“I feel like you’re making fun of me”, Yang said when she sat up.

“Never.” Nora grinned and made Yang take another sip of water.

“She’s kinda cute when she’s drunk”, Mercury said and even now she knew it was something special to have him admit that in front of someone else.

“I’m not that drunk.” Yang rolled her eyes and pulled her sweater over her head. He had to help her a bit to take it off, but she managed to put on her pyjama shirt and take off her jeans on her own. “I think I want to sleep now”, she said.

“You should.” Mercury got up.

“No, _you_ stay here.” She pointed at Mercury. “I didn’t get me a boyfriend to sleep alone.”

“I still don’t want to sleep in my jeans. I’ll go upstairs and get changed, okay?”

“Come back soon.” Yang crawled under the blanket. “Promise?”

“You two are adorable.” Nora got up. “Go get changed, I really need to sleep.”

Yang was already almost asleep when Mercury came back. It was dark and he crawled under her blanket. She rested her head on his arm and he wrapped the other around her waist. His chest was warm against her back and she was sure she had never felt that comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing drunk characters.


	39. Chapter 39

“Mercury? Are you awake?”

“Mh.”

“I need to talk about something.”

He groaned and tried to turn his back towards her, but she was lying on top of him and pushed him down by his shoulder.

“Come on, don’t just ignore me.”

“If you want to break up with me please wait until tomorrow morning.” He blinked at her. “Did you turn the lights on?”

“No, that’s just the moon.”

“Yang, you totally turned the lights on.”

“Alright, alright.” She pulled herself up to turn the lights off and then lied down next to him without touching him, her back turned towards him. “Sorry I bothered you.”

“Yang.”

“Good night.”

“Are you kidding me…” He got up and for a moment she thought he would just leave, then she remembered they were in his room. She heard him shut the bathroom door behind him and closed her eyes, trying to take deep breaths so that horrible feeling in her chest would go away.

She didn’t move when he came back, pretended to be asleep. The mattress shifted when he lied back down and he wrapped his arm around her. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“I’m asleep.”

“You already woke me up, now at least talk about what you wanted to talk about.”

“It’s about Raven.”

He sighed. “Now?”

She rolled herself on her back and stared at the dark ceiling. “You know, Blake told me she actually was there in the hospital and I just pushed it all away until I woke up tonight and I couldn’t stop feeling sick because of it. She’s going to come to the wedding and I don’t know if I should just ignore her or tell Winter to tell her not to come or… I don’t know. I think I should talk to her but I can’t talk to her on the wedding because what if that ruins the whole day for me? But... should I talk to her before the wedding? What if she turns out to be just as shitty as ever?”

“Just talk to her, Yang”, Fox said from the other end of the room. “Talk to her before the wedding, then it’s still enough time to remove her from the guest list.”

Yang buried her head in Mercury’s chest while he laughed, her cheeks were burning. “Yeah, I should probably do that. Sorry for waking you up.”

“Can you sleep or do you want to call her now?” Mercury ran his hand up and down her back.

“Tomorrow.”

He kissed her forehead. “Good night.”

 

___

It was the first warm day of the year, or in Yang’s eyes the first day that wasn’t unbearably freezing cold. The sun was shining and even though she was cold Yang had taken her coat off, just to feel light again. She couldn’t wait for spring.

Raven had agreed on meeting her immediately, but it had been over a month until she had called again to tell her she was in the area. Now she was waiting for her, sitting outside the small café. She was the only one sitting outside, but Yang just couldn’t get enough of the sun.

Raven was dressed in a red dress and a black coat she was wearing open. She smiled her business smile when she approached her, but she didn’t hug her, didn’t touch her when she sat down. “It’s warm here”, she said. “How are you?”

Yang stared at the menu in front of her for a moment. With Raven she never knew what to say, but now that she actually had something she wanted to talk about it was only worse. “Courses started again”, she said eventually. For a moment they both didn’t say anything. Yang looked up and then stared at some birds fighting over a bagel from the bin, wondering if Raven even knew she was still there.

“You want to talk about what happened at Christmas”, Raven said eventually. Yang wasn’t sure if her tone was accusatory or if she just imagined it.

“That’s why I called you.” She tried to make her voice sound just as cold as Raven could sometimes.

“Well, I wanted to talk to you about it right away.” Raven took the menu and studied it for a moment. “What made you change your mind?”

“Blake told me you were there at the hospital. Why did you never tell me?”

For a moment Raven looked genuinely surprised. “I thought you knew”, she finally said.

“No one told me. I mean Blake never talked to me about the accident and dad… didn’t want to upset me, she said. He can be a bit protective.”

“You know, sometimes I really wonder how you see me.” Raven closed the menu and put it on the table. She leaned back, staring at some point in the distance. “You thought I didn’t even come to the hospital for all those years, but why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know _you_. And you never even mentioned the accident.”

“Because I waited for you to mention it.” Raven leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Why would I make you talk about the accident when you obviously didn’t want to? It was your trauma. I didn’t want to dig into it before you were ready. I waited for you to call me because I assumed you needed time to recover and Tai actually made it quite clear that I should give you time. I didn’t just ignore you because I wanted to pretend nothing had happened like Tai sometimes uses to do.” She looked at her. “I also didn’t just invite you for dinner because I wanted you to get me Winter Schnee as a business contact.”

“Then why did you make me skip Christmas with my family?”

“I never meant to _make_ you do anything, Yang. I just… well, actually it was the only evening I was available. Probably not the only time I could have met you over the last years, but after I got behind how useful Winter could be for me.”

“So it was because of her.”

“Or she was because of you.”

Yang blinked. “What?”

“I’ve never been the mum type.” Raven took a box of cigarettes out of the pockets of her coat. Yang hadn’t even known she smoked. “It’s not easy to have a child that young, you’re full of hormones and sometimes it happens that a mother just feels like the world is a horrible place and you need to run away. It took me long enough to actually make myself talk to you and maybe a mother shouldn’t feel like making up excuses to see her child, but I always had high expectations at myself and failing at being a mother might have kept me from actually being one and seeing you more often. Maybe I have tried to be a mother for too long to see that my mistake was trying to be one at all.” She took a brief pause to light the cigarette. “I tried and I did a crappy job, I admit that. I should have been here more. I shouldn’t have tried at all. I could never beat Summer with this anyway. But if I can’t be a mother, maybe I can be something else.”

Yang looked at her. Maybe it was the most honest she had ever been with her and she felt like she should have been disappointed or anything, but if she was honest with herself she had never felt a glimpse of being close to her until this moment. A glimpse of Raven actually wanting this, of not begging for her attention. “And what would that be?”, she finally asked.

Raven shrugged and blew the smoke of her cigarette into the cool air. “I don’t know. Someone in your life I hope. Depends on what space you have for me.”

“My life is a bit more flexible than your schedule. Maybe we can just see how things work out and then go from were.” 

For the first time in her life Yang felt like Raven was genuinely smiling at her. “Sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favourite chapters to write so far because I didn't really know how to approach this and was surprised by the outcome. 
> 
> One more chapter to go. I reeeeeally hope I'll include everything to wrap up the story. Let me know what you'd like to see, maybe it will be in the final chapter. The chapter will be a long one and include a lot of things I have saved for the very end. I hope to post it next week and then this story will finally be finished. 
> 
> It's been a ride but I gotta say that all of your comments, every single one of them, really kept me going. I wouldn't have finished this without you.


	40. Chapter 40

“Almost done.”

“Are you sure it looks good?”

Weiss laughed, pulling at Ruby’s hair and coating it with so much hairspray Ruby started to cough. Then she finally let go of her, looked at her closely one last time and gave her a kiss on the lips. “You look wonderful. See for yourself.”

Ruby turned around. She almost didn’t recognise the girl in the mirror. Weiss had braided her hair in a way that honestly impressed her. The blue dress really didn’t look too bad on her though she felt a bit awkward in it, and she really wasn’t used to wearing make-up. “I think it’s not too bad.”

“Oh, come on.”

“You look wonderful, though.” The light blue dress made Weiss almost look like a fairy, soft curls of white hair falling down on her shoulders. “Do you think we should check on the others?”

“I hope Winter isn’t freaking out.” Weiss took her large handbag, containing everything she thought they could possibly need to prevent a catastrophe from happening today. “But I have some valerian drops in case she is.”

Not being a bridesmaid decreased the stress for Ruby immensely, but Yang looked like she was going to faint any minute when she opened the door of Winter’s hotel room. “This is the end”, she said. She was still wearing a bathrobe and no make-up. “The dress is gone.”

Well, never mind.

“What do you mean the dress is gone?” Weiss pushed the door open and pulled Ruby inside. “Where did it go?”

“I don’t know.” Winter sat on the bed, wearing some pyjama with ridiculously cute bunnies on them and looked calmer than Ruby had ever seen her. “We opened the bag and in it was that horrible mess over there.” She pointed something that looked as if a white curtain had had an accident with a sewing machine, pearls and glitter. “That is not my dress.”

“This is unbelievable, did you call the tailor?”

“Not answering his phone”, Yang said.

“I will make him answer his damn phone and either he is going to get that dress here in ten minutes or Winter will wear his skin when she walks down the aisle.” Weiss pulled Yang out of the room and Ruby felt a bit lost.

“The dress suits you”, Winter said. “Come, sit down. This might take a while.”

“You’re surprisingly calm.” Ruby sat down next to her, careful not to ruin anything of the work Weiss had done to make her look good.

“Because I don’t really care.” Winter took a cup of coffee from the night table and sipped on it. “If I have to I will marry him in that dress over there. I’d even marry him in this pyjama. I just want to be married to him, this day is just meant to be a nice party for everyone we love and care about.”

“You still look pretty though. But I’m sure Weiss will come up with a solution in no time.”

“Of course. She always does.” Winter leaned back and looked at her. “She really likes you, you know?”

Ruby blushed. “Oh, well… yeah. I mean, I really like her, too.”

“I know.” Winter laughed. “I always knew you two would end up together.” She smiled at her and got up. “I’ll go and shower before Weiss and Yang get a heart attack. Make yourself comfortable, this will take a while.”

 

* * *

 

“I totally didn’t cry.”

Yang laughed and nudged Weiss with her elbow. “Come on, you did. But it’s okay, dad cried, too.”

“I just had something in my eye.” Tai wrapped his arm around Weiss’ shoulders. “I’m just glad Qrow is happy and one of my daughters found herself a lovely person to date.”

“No need to throw shade, dad.” Yang rolled her eyes. “You didn’t even meet him yet.”

“I saw him. His smirk means nothing good.”

“Winter is almost done with her pictures.” Yang turned around. “And I can’t hear you over the sound of my _boyfriend_ waiting for me to make out with him in a dark alley way while we do drugs and get matching tattoos all over our bodies because that’s the kind of bad influence he is for me.”

“Yang Xiao Long, if you-“

“I can’t hear you!” Yang walked off to join Blake, Ruby, Mercury and Emerald who were sitting beneath a tree, escaping the sun for a moment while they waited for their turn with the wedding photographer.

“You know, I really don’t think that is how you’re going to break them apart.” Weiss shook her head.

“I just don’t like that boy. I really like you, though. I hope you know I’m happy you’re dating Ruby now.”

“I know.” Weiss smiled. “Remember Christmas two years ago when you drank all the eggnog and offered to adopt me?”

“Actually I don’t. But sounds like something I’d do. Oh no, she’s doing that to annoy me, doesn’t she?” He glared at Yang who was now sitting on Mercury’s lap, his arms wrapped around her waist.

“I think she fears my wrath if she dares to sit on the grass in that dress before we’re done with the pictures.”

“She could just sit on Blake’s lap.”

 

* * *

 

It was a magical wedding. They celebrated outside, with fairy lights and lampions hanging in the trees. It was spring, but they had blankets and small fires in barrels keeping them warm.

Yang felt like Winter had finally melted. She laughed and danced, with Qrow being happier than she had ever seen him, her white dress floating when she turned around and Yang remembered this morning when she and Weiss had left a thousand threatening voice messages until the tailor had brought them the right dress.

“This is not what I expected from a Schnee wedding”, Raven said.

“You have no idea what this would have looked like if Weiss had planned it. She wanted a carpet.”

“A carpet in the forest? Sounds more like it.” Raven laughed and sipped on her wine glass. She looked almost too glamorous in her red dress. “How did you two manage to help with the wedding preparations while still keeping up with university?”

“Well, Weiss is… Weiss. She’s working day and night and still has time to learn new languages.” She poured more wine into her glass. She hadn’t talked about this with anyone, not even Blake. “And I’m just… attending classes to attend them. I think I will quit university after this semester.”

“Why?”

“I think it just… isn’t right for me. I don’t like my major, but I have no idea what else to do. I think I want to travel the world for a bit, maybe work somewhere abroad, but I have no idea what I want to do in life.”

“Then you should do that.”

Yang looked at her. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, Raven telling her how stupid she was, Raven yelling at her. It was probably what her father would have done. She knew he meant well. She also knew she had to make this choice on her own.

Raven smiled and shrugged. “Stop looking at me like that, what did you expect me to say? There are some lessons you have to learn for yourself. Quit university and find out what you want, you can still go back and study something you really like. If that major doesn’t help you move forward stop wasting your time with it.”

“You’re the first one who says that.” Yang sighed and looked at the crowded dance floor. “Every time I told someone I’m thinking about it they tell me it’s a stupid idea.”

“Maybe it is, but sometimes people have to make bad choices. You know, I met your father in college and he thought about quitting at least twice a day. At least you’re not just having a breakdown from all the stress, you’re making the choice that sounds as if you really thought it through.”

“Yes, I did.” Ever since she had started university.

“I travel a lot for my job.” Raven put her wine glass on the table and turned it around. In the dim light the liquid almost looked black. “You could join me if you want. At least for a while. See a bit of the world.” She got up. “Think about it. I’ll go and see if I can find your father, haven’t talked to him in ages.”

Yang looked at her as she left. The offer came unexpected and she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, if it was too soon, if she trusted her enough already.

But she would think about it.

It took her a moment to find Ruby. She was sitting under a tree, her arms wrapped around Weiss, along with Emerald, Blake and Mercury. “Having fun?”, she asked and sat down next to Mercury. He wrapped his arms around her shoulder and she took his glass out of his hands to have a sip, it was just coke.

“My feet hurt.” Ruby leaned her head against Weiss’ shoulder. “Winter looks so beautiful, but I don’t know how she can dance all night long in those shoes.”

“Training”, Weiss said. “But even my feet hurt.”

“Can you believe a year ago I had my first date with Em?” Blake smiled and Emerald kissed her cheek. “And now her best friend is dating my best friend, Ruby is finally dating Weiss, and Winter married Qrow.”

“Why does everyone keep saying finally whenever they find out about us dating?”, Ruby asked.

“Because everyone saw it coming. Literally everyone.” Yang laughed. “You two are just too cute together.”

“Let’s see where we are next year”, Yang said. She had no idea where she would end up, but she knew she was happy right here, right now.

 

* * *

 

Mercury knew he would never ever get married. If he hadn’t known it prior this day, he knew it now. He didn’t particularly like the idea of being married and getting married now rather seemed like a punishment of ties and drunken relatives than something to pursuit.

They stayed until it was late at night and when Yang had drunk more than a bottle of wine and couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore he decided it was time for them to leave.

“I really like you in a suit”, Yang mumbled. He was carrying her on his back, mostly because she insisted on keeping those heels on, even though she had started to complain about her feet hurting hours ago.

“I prefer my usual clothes.”

“I prefer wearing clothes, but you still like me without them.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that”, Taiyang said all of a sudden behind them. _Shit_. Mercury took a deep breath and turned around. Taiyang was looking at him as if he wasn’t sure whether which slow death was painful enough for him. Qrow was standing next to him, laughing as if his death was a great joke. “Already leaving?”

“She fell asleep twice”, Mercury said.

“I totally didn’t.” Yang ruffled his hair as revenge and he knew it bothered her when he didn’t react. He had to keep himself from smirking.

“Maybe I should take her to her room”, Taiyang said.

“Dad, stop it. He’s sleeping in my room anyway.”

For a moment Taiyang looked like he wouldn’t have the patience for a slow death. “I don’t think that’s-“

“Dad, don’t pretend college is a catholic girl’s school.” Yang groaned.

“You know, that boy reminds me of you when you were young”, Qrow said. “Do you remember how mad I was when you started to date my sister?”

“Don’t remind me.” Taiyang stared at his shoes.

“I’m cold.” Yang started to lick Mercury’s ear to get his attention and he flinched.

“I’ll get her to bed before she eats me alive.” Or before she could say something in front of her father she’d regret tomorrow.

“But-“, Taiyang started, but Qrow laid his hand on his shoulder.

“Good night”, Qrow said and looked at Mercury. He smirked. “Don’t give him a real reason to be mad at you.”

“Never.” Mercury turned around. What really counted was Yang being mad at him. When they got back to her hotel room and she mumbled something about a dead tailor while he wrapped his arms around her and tried to get her hair out of his face he knew there was no place he’d rather be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaand it's done. I think I got pretty much everything into this chapter I wanted to. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for showing an interest in this story! It always sounds like something you just say, but your comments really kept me going and I wouldn't have finished it without you. Some of you commented on almost every chapter and I was really, really happy about every single comment of yours! Also special thanks to qlexy because I made her read every single word of this story. 
> 
> But this won't be a goodbye forever because I am totally not done with my favourite trash couple. I still have to finish Bedtime Stories and I have planned on two more G&G fanfictions I am definitely going to write. The story I am going to post next is something with way more angst, but a loooooot of shipping...


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